When viewed from a certain angle, the empty porch perfectly framed the ruins of the smoldering City Hall.

The haunting image became an icon of the 1906 earthquake, due largely to photographs by Willard Worden.

Worden photographed the Portals both at the original Nob Hill site and at the final location on the banks of Lloyd Lake in the park.

The site is mentioned in Alfred Hitchcock's film Vertigo (1958) as a place where Madeleine Elster (Kim Novak) enters a trance and becomes possessed.

The Portals of the Past also play a significant role in the novel License to Ensorcell (2011) by Katharine Kerr.