The Fairmont was nearly finished when the 1906 earthquake struck. The building stood, the fire gutted the interior, and the opening slipped to 1907. It played the St. Gregory in the establishing shots of the TV series Hotel, and it is in The Rock (1996).
The permit record goes back to Alexander’s Ragtime Band (1938) and I Remember Mama (1948), and on through Freebie and the Bean (1974) and Hitchcock’s Family Plot (1976). Downstairs, the Tonga Room tiki bar keeps a band on a barge in a former swimming pool, with artificial thunderstorms overhead; it appears in the HBO series Looking.
Part of a self-guided walking tour
