The Cecil Hotel

Published: March 16, 2021, 7 a.m.


On this episode of Slice of Pi Podcasts, Bobby & Ian discuss the Cecil Hotel ( Los Angeles)

In 2013, the Cecil (by then re-branded as the "Stay on Main" although still maintaining the original Hotel Cecil signs and painted advertisements on its exterior) became the focus of renewed attention when surveillance footage of a young Canadian student, Elisa Lam, behaving erratically in the hotel's elevator, went viral. The video depicts Lam repeatedly pressing the elevator's buttons, walking in and out of the elevator and possibly attempting to hide from someone. It was recorded shortly before her disappearance, then her naked body was subsequently discovered in a water supply cistern on the hotel roof, following complaints from residents of odd-tasting water and low pressure. How she got into the cistern remains a mystery. The Los Angeles County Coroner ruled her death accidental due to drowning, with bipolar disorder being a "significant" factor.