The little house on the mountain

I took this photo when I was walking to the unemployment office today. It's the old water tower in my hometown. 179 steps (according to the information sign below the steps but I haven't counted them myself) to the top. It was built in 1897 and the building itself isn't very big. Only like 2-3 square metres or so. The water was/is(?) inside the mountain from what I remember from school.
If you go all the way up there you get a great view of the town and can see all the way to the ocean. The problem is that, as you can see, there's nothing to hold onto while going up/down the steps. The old handrail was broken in several places so they removed the whole thing a few years ago and haven't put a new one up... yet. Maybe they never will.
Maybe I'll make a follow-up post on this one in the summer when there's actually leaves on the trees.

Edit: Took some photos of it again today.