The Cecil Hotel had grand ambitions and a troubled history, and now it’s become essential affordable housing in Downtown LA.
For genuine crime enthusiast , the Cecil Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles is theperfect internet rabbit hole , with a slew of murders , suicide , and confederacy theories . But for some of Los Angeles ’s trapping - insecure people , the supposedly taken up hotel has been the only affordable lodging around , and for many , their longtime home plate . Now , after a churning history of transitioning from a high-pitched - end hotel in the 1920s to an affordable housing tugboat , the Cecil Hotel has beenlisted for sales event .
The cut-rate sale was announce on March 5 , and it came as a stupor to local , the building ’s resident , and its volunteer . Reverend Dylan Littlefield , who has served as the chaplain of the Cecil Hotel for the past seven calendar month , only learned about the sales agreement from a reporter friend of his . Within 60 minutes of the proclamation , Littlefieldwas Henry Fielding phone callsfrom panic resident .
“ The resident , especially the ones dealing with a lot of separation - bear on trauma , were very concerned that they would end up being homeless , ” Littlefield pronounce . “ One soul call me , and he said ‘ Am I just going to get kicked to the curbing now ? Are they going to let me be stateless again ? I do n’t know if I can do that . ’ ”
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Little is known about the imminent cut-rate sale at this time . Whoever ends up purchase the hotel will take over the now 91 - year ground rental . While Littlefield is hesitating about the future of the hotel , as well as the new leaseholder ’s intentions , he is hopeful they will be constructive and equip to handle the labor at hand .
“ I desire that the new proprietor has a better sense of what the building as a physical construction pauperization . If they spend more fourth dimension thinking about the humankind of the place , it will be life - changing , ” Littlefield say .
From glamor to infamy
When itopened in 1927 , the Cecil Hotel was intend to leave luxury deposit for business travelers and tourer likewise . The hotel was decked out with unsparing interiors , including an iconic and glamourous Beaux Arts lobby , feature marble floors and stained glass window . Unfortunately , within the hotel ’s first couple years of operation , the Great Depression happen upon , and its rooms decline in price and caliber . It did n’t help that the surround neighborhood became a hot spot for prostitution , drugs , and violence , the area now called Skid Row .
Through most of the twentieth one C , the Cecil Hotel was a hub of criminal activity . And then , in 2007 , it saw the first of a bowed stringed instrument of rebrands ; developers wanted to change state it into a budget - well-disposed tourist spot calledThe Pearl , but the project was never completed . In 2011 , one-half of the Cecil Hotel start operating under the name remain On Main , while the other half remained a residential distance . Despite the name change , the condition remained ratty . Multiple tourists unfamiliar with the locationended up hold rooms , not realizingthey were staying at the place nicknamed “ The Suicide ” and “ Hotel Death . ”
Hotelier Richard Bornpurchased the hotel for $ 30 millionin 2014 in hope of transmute it into a chic , gentrified oasis for young professionals . Born is the possessor of several ritzy NYC hotel like the Mercer , the Bowery Hotel , the Ludlow , and The Jane , and he had plans to recreate the building , contain fresh restaurants and bars , and even add a ram consortium on the ceiling . In this rendition of the Cecil Hotel , rooms were set to go for $ 150 a dark , a vast departure from the $ 40–50 median charge per unit in 2008 .
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But gestate ’s ambitious proposal for the 14 - floor , 700 room building never come to realization . In 2016 he passed the hotel ’s lease on to other E coasters , New York - found real estate developer Simon Baron Development , now known as Baron Property Group . Like Born , they also had majestic goal in mind for the hotel , with plans to amply reformulate the interior , but the oeuvre proceeded easy despite a prestigious Los Angeles City Councildesignation of the Cecil Hotel as a landmarkfor its early 20th hundred hotel architecture .
And then , when the COVID-19 pandemic smash , Baron suspended construction indefinitely . It remain closed until 2021 , when the hotel reopened as an low-priced housing complex , which it has stay to this day .
A multitude of tragedies
The hotel has had its fair share of ill-famed guests . consecutive killer Richard Ramirez , known as “ The Night Stalker , ” occupied a room during his killing sprees in the 1980s , as did Jack Unterweger , who is aver to have murdered three sex workers during his stay . On top of the hotel ’s string of murders , an dumbfounding amount of client have perpetrate suicide on the grounds , with the first occuring in 1931 . Since then , a myriad of hoi polloi have jumped out of the hotel ’s windows and overdosed on the premises . Plus , the Black Dahlia , a woman who was found murdered and mutilated in Leimert Park in 1947 in one of LA ’s most ill-famed historical crimes , allegedly had her last drunkenness at the hotel ’s bar .
The hotel ’s most widely known incident , however , was the death of Canadian student Elisa Lam . After being find out do unpredictably in the hotel ’s lift on surveillance footage , Lam was found in a water tank on the cap 19 days later , with no indications of how she got there . This cataclysm , along with Ramirez ’s murders , have served as aspiration forAmerican Horror Story ’s 5th season “ Hotel ” and the Coen Brothers ’ thrillerBarton Fink , as well as multiple docuseries , such asCrime Scene : The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel .
Where it stands now
The Cecil Hotel under Baron Property Group now has 600 affordable units . In August of 2023 , though , the Los Angeles Times reportedthat the hotel ’s residents were living in unhealthful conditions , with mold walls , roach and mice infestation , and clogged can . With the help of volunteers like Littlefield , however , the space has been meliorate .
While the Cecil Hotel has not fully outrun its taken up report , Littlefield , along with a few other volunteers , is make believe footstep to serve it along . non-profit-making healthcare provider JWCH Institute recently set up two clinic on the earth floor of the building and has already served multiple residents , and Littlefield has organized various community outcome for the occupier and the Skid Row population , including an Ash Wednesday festivity and a Día de Muertos altar . In the coming month , he hopes to re-introduce an Alcoholics Anonymous program to the hotel .
Ideally , the sales agreement of the property to new owner could aid better access to help and overall tone of life for the current residents , and for the time to come of business district LA .
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“ There ’s an preponderant sense of hopelessness , but that hopelessness can be very well transformed , ” Littlefield says . “ This is a place filled with unfulfilled potentiality . ”
