Unit 2 final draft/ THE CECIL HOTEL

THE CECIL HOTEL 

  What caused The Cecil Hotels’ downfall? Everyone knows about the famous tragedies that have gone on but don’t question where it all started. I’m asking my question to know more about the history and know the peak of The Cecil and its decline. The hotel caught my attention at first because of its paranormal history. I saw the 4 episode sequel of the Ghost adventure based on The Cecil and my interest increased from there. I’ve always had an interest in the mysterious hotel but because of the things that I heard and the series, I watched I never looked into it in my free time. A year or so after watching the show I got the opportunity to see it in person. It wasn’t what I was expecting. The actual block of the hotel was clean and looked presentable. From a 2-block radius, it was completely different. There were a lot of homeless people in tents, people asleep on the sidewalks and many acted abnormally due to drug addiction. When I saw that it was clear to me that the new management is working their hardest to keep these people out. I expect to learn something that I don’t already know about the Cecil. I feel sometimes all these videos and articles repeat each other. If I don’t find what I was expecting to find I’m still going to go with it. Something is better than nothing and as long as it’s interesting and something other people want to read I’m ok with it.

My first source is a youtube video, released 3 days from today. The video is called “The Dark History of THE CECIL HOTEL”https://www.youtube.com/user/MyHaunte… it was 29:34 minutes long and was posted on a channel called Obsoleteoddity-reloaded. Which seems to be a paranormal/ murder history educational channel. I was lucky to find this channel. I was struggling a lot to find useful sources and was relieved I found a well-informed video. Cecil was a perfect topic for this channel and was put out at perfect timing because of the Halloween season. The video has an immense amount of information listing all of the deaths documented and also went over the lengthy stay of the two famous serial killers. What really caught my eye was that it went into detail about how it started.

 The Cecil was built in Downtown Los Angeles. It’s not sure when the building was constructed but it was under construction for 3 years. It said either in 1924 or 1927 the hotel was open to the public, assuming construction started in 1924 and officially opened in 1927. The investors William Banks Hanner, Charles L. Dix, and Robert H. Schops invested three million dollars to bring their idea to life. To them, it was a great investment because downtown Los Angeles was a pub of fun times and business negotiations. The hotel tended to be for international businessmen and first-time visitors looking for the Downtown, LA experience. Unfortunately for the new Hotel owners, it wasn’t what they hoped it would be. The United States entered The Great Depression a few years after the hotel’s grand opening. The Depression wasn’t the only reason for its decline but also for its close proximity to the skid row area. The title of the area began during the construction of the railroads in the mid-1800s. The dreams The Cecil owners once had vanished due to the violence and criminal activity in the area. Over several years it became home to people with low income gaining a reputation of being a cheap option. Old men, people with psychiatric problems, and people suffering from addiction stay there and live up to its unappealing nicknames as “ the suicide” and “ Hotel death” some said it was cursed from the start. In 2011 new management renamed The Cecil to “Stay at Main” the name change didn’t do much, everyone still called it the Cecil Hotel, and was closed due to negative publicity. in 2014, Hotelier Richard Born bought the hotel for 30 million dollars, He shut down the hotel in 2017 for renovations. According to my source, the new renovations include 299 hotel rooms and the other side of the famous building is going to be incorporated into affordable residential units.

My second source is an article https://allthatsinteresting.com/cecil-hotel-los-angeles published on December 11th, 2021, and updated on September 21, 2022. The report was posted on a site called ati and was written by Katie Serena. This article caught my eye mostly because it has all the topics I wanted to touch on. 

Being home to 16 different documented murders/suicides and many unexplained paranormal activities. The Cecil has a reputation that wasn’t fairly expected. The first documented death was Percy Ormond Cook, age 52 killed himself by a gunshot to the head after failing to reconcile with his wife and child. After Cook’s death in 1927, it didn’t stop there. In only the 1930s up to six suicides were reported. Few ingested poison, while others shot themselves, slit their throats, or jumped out the window. One tragic incident had to do with Army Sergeant Louis D. Borden. The Sergeant slit his throat in his hotel room. He was found with a suicide note and was reported that he ended his life due to health problems. One disturbing incident that’s not mentioned as much is the Dorothy Jean Purcell case. 19 your old Dorothy was spending the night with a gentleman named Ben Levine,38. She woke up in the middle of the night with stomach pain. She got up and headed to the bathroom to not disturb Mr.Levine. Shockingly Dorothy gave birth to a baby boy. She assumed that the baby boy was stillborn and ended up throwing him out of a 19th-floor window. Officials confirmed that the poor infant was alive prior to the fall and died from the impact. Dorothy was convicted of her crime but was found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity. She spent the rest of her days in a psychiatric hospital. Another unfortunate death was in October 1962 27-year-old Pauline Otton had a heated argument with her husband and when he stormed out of the hotel room she took it as an opportunity to jump out of her hotel room’s window. What makes this case even sadder is Mrs.Otton landed on a pedestrian. His name was Gianinni and was 65 years old, sadly they both died instantly. Officials thought Gianinni and Mrs. Otton jumped together but eventually figured if he would’ve jumped with her his shoes would’ve flown off and when found his hands were in his pockets. The last case I’d like to talk about is the pigeon goldie case. Pigeon Goldie is a nickname given to a local who was a retired telephone operator/ telemarketer named Georgina. She was 79 years old and was given the name Pigeon Goldie because she enjoyed feeding pigeons in a nearby park square. Tragically Georgina was found raped, stabbed, and beaten in her room. The room was also ransacked. The LAPD only had one suspect. It was 29-year-old Jacques B.Ehlinger that was seen walking around with bloodstained clothing in the same park square pigeon goldie would spend her spare time at. Jacques was arrested and charged but was later cleared of his crimes. Her murder is unsolved to this day. 

While all these things took place The Cecil was temporarily home to 2 disturbing murders. In the 80s “The night stalker” AKA Richard Ramirez lived on the top floor paying 14 dollars per night during his killing spree. It’s said Ramirez would throw his bloody clothes in the Hotel’s dumpster and walk naked or in underwear through the hotel lobby after his murders. “Ramirez’s blood-soaked lifestyle surely raised nary an eyebrow at Cecil,” writes Katie. 

In the 90s the Austrian serial killer Jack Unterweger stayed at The Cecil for a period of time. It’s said that he chose The Cecil because of its connections with Ramirez. Jake strangled prostitutes with their bras, The area of the Cecil was popular with prostitutes which made it a good area to search for victims. One of his victims vanished right down the street from the  Cecil. He eventually was arrested after having him under surveillance due to his crimes in Austria. 

In my third and last source I will be talking about Skid Row the downfall of The Cecil Hotel. I choose a article called A Short History Of Skid Row https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/skid-row.htm. It was written by Dave Roos and published Oct 19,2022. 

Skid Row is a 50 block radius in downtown Los Angeles, up to 8,000-11,000 people live in this area 2,000 to 3,000 live on the street, living in tents, blankets and boxes. Others live in homeless shelters or in low income mini-apartments. Skid Row’s current population is black and male but over some years the numbers have increased for women and children. Veterans make up 20% of the Skid Row population. A lot of the residents struggle with substance abuse or psychiatric problems. 

Before getting into the Skid Row in downtown LA let’s talk about the original.  The first skid row was in Seattle. “Back the 1850s, lumber was the lifeblood of the pioneer town of Seattle, Washington.” said Dave. There were paths carved out of the forest for logging camps that were called “skid roads”. Most of that population was lumberjacks and mill workers. They would spend their spare time at salons and brothels. By the 20th century it was being leaned on calling the area was called either Skid row or Skid road and became “a neighborhood of last resorts for the destitute, addicted or otherwise down and up.” in the late 19TH century the Bowery was the last stop for men on their way to NYC and that area was known as Skid row in the 1940s. By the mid-20th century there were various skid rows around the nation. In 1869 the Transcontinental Railroad was completed but in 1879 Los Angeles convinced the organization to extend a line to southern california. Due to the railroad needing leveled surfaces it brought in a lot of workers. All these workers would either stay at mini hotels, brothels or salons; these men were the start of the neighborhood that became Skid Row. Sadly the men would lose work due to oil being discovered in Los Angeles. Then the Great Depression started, there wasn’t enough work for people. Spivack says that the 1930s saw the beginning of a “ permanent underclass” living in the hard-luck Los Angeles community that would become Skid Row. By the 1960s, skid row was a dark and dangerous place and since it was in “the heart of Los Angeles’ ‘ had scared the businessmen away. In 1989, The Skid Row Housing Trust was created to get more in control of the area. The Housing Trust renovated or conducted a residential building inside of the skid row. Some of these buildings serve for addiction recovery counseling, health and wellness classes and community activities.Spivak said that other cities in LA County have “stepped up’ to offer their own low-income housing and homelessness support. 

In my research, I’ve learned a tremendous amount. I’ve learned That the area of where the hotel was built played a big part on why it gained the reputation it has today. In my research I found cases that are not mentioned has much as it should. People are more focused talking about what happened to Elisa Lam and the lost spirits that linger in those halls today. When there is so much more to learn the Cecil hotel has a sad and disturbing history but its very interesting to learn about. With all the bad there always some good I also learned that The Cecil now called Stay At Main has 299 units solely for low-income residents. Even with its dark past new management pushed for it to have some light in its darkness by helping the Skid Row resident in need. With everything I learned what surprised me the most was its dark history. Dorothy jean Purcell, Ginaninni and Pauline, Pigeon Goldie this care case that make the hair on the back of my neck stand. These topics are not for anyone but Ive always had a interest in murder mystery so learning these cases reminded me of the reality of this world its sad but true. What I learn is all from interest. It’s important to whoever thinks it is. It’s important to me because these people should be remembered. These cases can be learned and can even be used to help prevent these things from happening again but mostly to not forget the people who died in that building even if it was by their own hands or anothers. I feel this topic is for any adult  who wants  to learn about it . I say adults because the Cecil is tied to a lot of traumatic events and should not be exposed to any child under the age of 17. This is a topic you really do have to mentally prepare yourself to learn about. There are a lot of disturbing cases that I didn’t get to mention so I would advise you to prepare yourselves. If you are a person who cant handle the topic of murder, suicides, addiction ,or rape this isnt a topic for you.