![]() Entire buildings sat vacant, with restaurants, bars, or jewelry stores doing business on the ground floor, and six stories sitting empty above.Īdvertising from the 1920s for the newly built Hotel Cecil Smith Collection/Gado // Getty Imagesīy 1960, L.A.'s streetcar system was torn out, putting a final nail in the coffin of downtown as any kind of city center. Once the freeways were built in the early 1950s, people began settling further away from the core of the city, leaving downtown increasingly unoccupied. “After World War II, people wanted more space, they wanted a more suburban environment,” historian Kim Cooper explains. The Great Depression hit the area hard, as did the rise of the suburbs and the birth of L.A.’s freeway system. ![]() Soon, though, the action in downtown took a turn. Designed by local architect Loy Lester Smith, and named after the prominent hotel of the same name in London, the Cecil catered to business travelers and tourists who wanted to be where the action was. Proximity to the railway lines was central to the Cecil's appeal when it opened its doors in 1927-its Main Street destination was then at the beating heart of the city, surrounded by theaters, restaurants, shopping, and the Spring Street Financial District. In the early 20th century it was the largest electric railway system in the world. once boasted a sprawling public transit system that criss-crossed the entire city. Though now known as a place where you can’t survive without a car, L.A. To understand what happened to the Cecil, you first have to understand what happened to Los Angeles. The lobby of the Cecil Hotel Boston Globe // Getty Images How did this elegantly designed hotel go from being a lively, desirable destination, to what one detective quoted in Netflix’s documentary described as “hell on earth”? But if you peer through the glass, you can still see the opulent lobby, all marble and terrazzo flooring and wrought-iron lamps. Its modern “Stay On Main” branding sits awkwardly alongside the ornate 1920s architecture of the building, vivid orange clashing with gold trim. Today, the place has an eerie and discordant vibe. The hotel closed its doors four years ago, following an eventful decade of attempted reinvention aware of the Cecil’s reputation, its new owners had tried to rebrand it as a hip, low-budget hostel called Stay On Main, an effort that stumbled in 2013 when Lam’s body was found in a rooftop water tank. Most recently, 21-year-old Canadian student Elisa Lam died during her stay under mysterious, disturbing circumstances. Serial killer Richard Ramirez even called it home during much of his 1985 murder spree. The Cecil has seen more than its share of violence over the years: at least 16 people have died there, and it has been the location of countless other brutal crimes. And if you believe in this sort of thing, there are also the ghosts of all those who’ve suffered and died at the Hotel Cecil, whose checkered history is the subject of the new Netflix documentary Crime Scene: Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel. The ghost of a beloved streetcar system that was ripped out in the 1960s, leaving L.A. The ghost of a thriving financial district, once dubbed "the Wall Street of the West," now abandoned. Even on a crisp, bright Sunday morning, they’re impossible to miss. To walk around downtown Los Angeles is to see ghosts.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |