Is the Cecil Hotel still open? Here's what's happening with the hotel in LA after the chilling death of Elisa Lam
Los Angeles' Hotel Cecil was opened in 1924 with the intention of catering to the middle to upper echelons of society in Downtown LA. Unfortunately, this was just a few years before the Great Depression hit. Understandably, the hotel's surrounding area began to decline in the following years, and suicides and other violent deaths on the premises became more frequent. Numerous residents reportedly committed suicide in their hotel rooms, and by the 1960s, the hotel became to be known as "The Suicide" by longtime residents.
Now, a new docuseries from Netflix will deliver into the mysteries Cecil Hotel. 'Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel' will take a look at the 2013 disappearance of college student Elisa Lam, and the subsequent discovery of her body in a water supply cistern on the hotel roof.
For nearly a century, Cecil Hotel was linked to some of Los Angeles' most notorious activities, from untimely deaths to housing serial killers like The Night Stalker Richard Ramirez and Jack Unterweger. One of the most famous appearances at the hotel is that of Elizabeth Short, known popularly as the "Black Dahlia" who was spotted drinking at the Cecil's bar in the days before her notorious, still-unsolved murder.
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In 1931, a guest named WK Norton had died in his room after taking poison capsules. In 1934, another resident slashed their throat. Thirty years later, Goldie "Pigeon" Osgood, a retired telephone operator was found dead in her room — she had been raped, stabbed, and beaten.
Amy Price, who used to work as Hotel Cecil's general manager from 2007 to 2017 told The Mirror, "There are a lot of unique challenges when you are running a hotel like the Cecil, a lot came with the place." She spoke about trouble in the first days of her working there, saying, "It wasn't even the first few days in the job when the maintenance manager said that we had a problem and I said 'what do you mean?' One of the guests died at the hotel. It was hard to process. Before working at the hotel I never had any experience with a dead body, a coroner, or even the police. That was a real eye-opener for me."
She continued, "We consistently saw people pass away. I saw around 80 deaths over my 10 years there. There were thousands of 911 calls.” So, is the mysterious, deadly hotel still open for business?
In 2014, a New York real estate developer, who runs expensive boutique hotels such as the Bowery and the Ludlow, bought Hotel Cecil for $30 million. In 2016, Simon Baron Development locked down a 99-year ground lease on the building, intending to repurpose it into a state-of-the-art mixed-use facility — a project that would cost the company approximately $100 million.
In 2017, the hotel closed its doors — the same year it was declared a Los Angeles landmark. According to Curbed LA, the developer proposed to refurbish 261 existing residential units and build 30 replacement units at a nearby property. Simon Baron Development was in the process of securing finance and permits for the renovation project in 2019 and was working with the Los Angeles architecture firm, Omgivning to put together the building's design. The developer expects to complete the work on the hotel by October 2021.
'Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel' will be available to stream on Netflix on Wednesday, February 10.
