The future of the Cecil Hotel remains uncertain, adding to the intrigue of its mysterious past.
The E-shaped hotel is located on Seventh and Main and is one of the oldest buildings in downtown Los Angeles. The long list of deaths, murders, and suicides that occurred within its walls over the decades has made the Cecil Hotel a fascinating spot for people around the world.
Part of the Cecil Hotel has been renovated and renamed “Stay on Main” under new ownership in order to distance itself from its notorious past. There was a separate lobby and reception area during the day, but shared facilities with tenants staying at the Cecil Hotel.
However, the hotel closed for renovations in 2017 after it was bought by New York hotelier Richard Born for $ 30 million in 2014. It happened after the well-known death of 21-year-old Elisa Lam, whose body was found in a water tank on the roof of the hotel in 2013.
The developer Simon Baron then signed a 99-year long lease in 2015. However, the doors will remain closed to hotel guests for the foreseeable future.
“We currently have no plans to reopen the hotel,” said Matthew Baron, President of Simon Baron Development.
“Originally we wanted to rebuild the whole thing and build a hotel with apartments,” he said.
However, right at the start of construction, COVID-19 began to roam the nation and the entire globe. “So we never really started,” he said.
It is “difficult to build a hotel during COVID,” said Baron. “There are much more difficult things in the world than that decision.”
There wasn’t a set design plan beforehand, and the entire project was pushed to the background with no expectation of an opening schedule, he said. There may be some new updates once the summer is over, but “it’s on right now,” added Baron.
“There is some repairs on the building,” as it is still home to some long-term tenants with protection from the city, “but nothing really is happening to it at the moment.”
This news could be a shame for those interested in its scary story.
A new Netflix documentary series titled “Tatort: The Disappearance at the Cecil Hotel” sheds light on the story of Lam, the Canadian student who traveled to Los Angeles and stayed at the hotel where she was later missing.
Maintenance workers checked these water tanks after guests complained about brown water and a sweaty taste, one of the most talked-about parts of the documentary series.
After she went missing for the first time, authorities released footage of a video in which Lam acted strangely, appeared paranoid or fearful, pressed buttons in desperation, and walked in and out of the elevator. It was made available to the public in hopes of finding information about her disappearance.
This video spread around the world, with “web investigators” or amateur online “investigators” speculating that she may have escaped from someone or something and may have been the victim of murder.
It was later determined that this paranoid behavior could be due to a bipolar episode, as the toxicological report on Lam’s body said she was not taking her medication at the prescribed dose.
Her death was classified as accidental due to drowning, with bipolar disorder being a “significant” factor according to investigators featured on the series.
While Lam’s death was the youngest and widely known, she is just one of many who died in the hotel, as explained in the documentary series.
In fact, there is an entire Wikipedia page devoted to the gruesome events, including suicides, as well as solved and unsolved murders that took place at the infamous hotel. The site is called “List of Deaths and Violence at the Cecil Hotel”.
The first death occurred in 1927, a gunshot suicide not long after the hotel opened its doors to guests.
In the following years, more suicides occurred in the rooms of the Cecil Hotel, leading the locals to refer to it as a “suicide hotel”.
The dark history of the Cecil Hotel
The Cecil Hotel was built during a prosperous Los Angeles era in the 1920s.
The Beaux Arts style architecture, the opulent Art Deco style lobby and the iconic exterior sign that advertises high occupancy and low prices attracted many business and leisure travelers to stay in the 700 rooms of the Cecil Hotels stayed.
The 19-story hotel had a few successful years – then the stock market collapsed. The once seductive hotel quickly became a place of despair.
The low daily, weekly and monthly rates became even lower, and since many in the city were unemployed, they sought refuge in hotels, explains the documentary.
Over the years, the low rates attracted travelers, transients, prostitutes, serial killers, and people on the move, as stated in the documentary series.
LA historian Kim Cooper was featured on the documentary series in which she stated that the Cecil Hotel “is known for this type of crime.”
“The Cecil is a place where serial killers drop their hair,” she said.
The prolific American serial killer Richard Ramirez, also known as “Night Stalker”, is said to have lived on the 14th floor and paid $ 14 a night for his room in the 1980s.
“After he committed some of the most brutal murders ever committed in Southern California, he returned to the Cecil. In the middle of the night he would be in the blood-covered alley, undressing. “
“(Ramirez) walked barefoot on his floor and into his room in his bloodstained underwear. Repeatedly, ”said Richard Schave, another LA historian featured on the series.
“And that’s cool and no one has a problem with it because it’s such a tough place,” added Cooper.
The Austrian serial killer Jack Unterweger, allegedly inspired by Ramirez, was at the Cecil Hotel in the early 1990s and is said to have murdered three sex workers in Los Angeles.
Kenneth Givens, who stayed at the Cecil Hotel in the 1980s, was also featured in the documentary series. He described the building as “lawless” and said he would never go any further than the sixth floor as there was a higher chance that people would be killed on the higher floors.
“As soon as they had a man in the room, they robbed him, beat him up and threw him out the window. So if you weren’t watching yourself, you’d be flying away from there with no wings. “
Recent past
In the “Stay on Main” rebranding attempt, the developer tried to evict some of the long-term tenants. However, that plan stalled when the city issued a work freeze order, according to the documentary series.
In an interview with Los Angeles Downtown News, a city ordinance was passed stating that hotels with more than 50% permanent residence are exempt from evictions, said Barbara Schultz, who oversees the Los Angeles Legal Aid Foundation (LAFLA).
“Residential hotels are extremely valuable residential properties because they cannot be taken off the market,” she said.
LAFLA reached a settlement agreement in 2006 that gave the residential hotels and tenants living in them even greater protection, and it was around that time that the city’s residential hotel ordinance was enacted.
This agreement should “ensure that with the gentrification of downtown, there are still housing stocks affordable for low-income people,” she said.
The city chose to keep the Cecil Hotel as a residential hotel, while half of the units were converted into a tourist hotel and the rest were left as low-income accommodation.
However, LAFLA wanted the entire hotel to be reserved for residential use, she said.
Schultz said she is “vehemently about protecting residential hotels because they can really be protected, and not just the tenant who is there, but the unit itself.”
There are an estimated 20 people currently still living in the building, she said. The settlement agreement was nearing completion when COVID-19 hit, she said.
Depending on how the case is resolved, there is a chance it could be classified as 100% low-income housing, she added.
Baron couldn’t comment. However, he made comments about whether his infamous past played a role in signing the 99-year lease.
Some may have been concerned about buying a hotel with such a desperate history that there may be a chance it won’t be successful. However, this was “not at all” the case with Baron, he said.
Baron hadn’t seen the Netflix documentary series but said “don’t believe everything you see” since shows were made to entertain.
“Certainly there were some unsavory characters who lived in the building”; However, this is the case in many inner cities such as Chicago and New York City. It’s “just a kind of what it is.”
