From atop Nob Hill you can site along California Street -- between the Mark Hopkins Hotel on the right and the Fairmont on the left -- toward the red Southern Pacific building and beyond that the Westernmost Tower of the Bay Bridge. The SP building once headquartered California's largest corporate employer, a giant real estate and railroad empire owned by the four Nabobs -- Leland Standford, Collin P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins and Samual Crocker -- all of whom had mansions atop Nob Hill prior to the great quake and ensuing Ham N Eggs fire of 1906. Southern Pacific divested its RR operations in the mid-90s but remains the state's largest land-holder.
The Fairmont Hotel has the best glass elevators I've ever ridden in, but no one on the ride wanted to take the time to ride up them.