FORMER MANAGERESS AMY PRICE TELLS US ABOUT WORKING AT THE HOLLYWOOD HOTEL WITH A DARK PAST
With serial killers Richard Ramirez and Jack Unterweger both having stayed there, Los Angeles’ Cecil Hotel has long been synonymous with dark goings-on. Built in 1924, it has been the scene of hundreds of deaths over the years, and the hotel, located near Skid Row, reached new infamy in 2013, when the body of 21-year-old student Elisa Lam was found in one of its water tanks. Her mysterious death featured in Netflix’s 2021 documentary Crime Scene: The Vanishing At The Cecil Hotel, which sparked abacklash towards Amy Price, who was the manager there from 2007 to 2017. Now, Amy, 49, has written about her experiences at the troubled hotel. Here, she tells us more.
You were hired at the Cecil for athree-day job that turned into adecade-long role. What made you stay?
Now, that’s aloaded question. Ireally thought it was going to be temporary.
I didn’t think of it as more than me helping out a friend with the interior design, but those three days flew by as there was alot to do. Idecided to stay because it was an opportunity of alifetime. Being acreative type, to be able to implement my ideas and be given alot of control in the design of the place, was exciting. At first, we got a lot of positive press and, as time went on, the responsibilities increased and it looked like we were going to expand the brand. That was also extremely exciting at the time, before everything blew up. I’d probably still be there today if the hotel hadn’t closed. It was an experience that I’m not quite sure Ican define. I’m still processing what happened in those ten years.
You describe your time there as a “beautiful disaster”…
And it was just that. We launched anew hotel brand, which was really exciting, and Ibecame general manager of ahotel with 600 rooms, but alot of tragic things happened. It’s hard to say that it was abeautiful experience, and it wasn’t an overall disaster. Add the friendship, the love, and the bond I formed with the hotel and the people who worked, lived and checked in there, and you’ve got abeautiful disaster.
Why do you say that the Cecil is for “people who have nowhere else to go, like those who exist in the shadows of society”?
When Ifirst started at the Cecil, the rooms were $45 anight. Where else can you get aroom for that, and with running water? It provided a roof over your head, where you could take ashower and relax. Ithink that’s why it attracted those types of people, because it was what they could afford. But one shocking element when Ifirst arrived was, on the first of the month, lines of people would be checking in at the front desk with their stuff in garbage bags, rather than suitc
