Dark City

26. TRUE CRIME & HAUNTINGS: Touring LA's Iconic Locations with James T. Bartlett

• Dark City Productions • Season 1 • Episode 26

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Los Angeles, CA | Join us for an audio tour of Hollywood and downtown Los Angeles’ most haunted locations and infamous crime scenes with James T. Bartlett, journalist and author of Gourmet Ghosts Volumes 1 & 2. From the lingering spirit of Marilyn Monroe to the poetic capture of a murderer, this journey will give you a new perspective on these iconic locations. 

To read more about James’ work and order Gourmet Ghosts (there are many more locations we could not cover in the episode!), visit his website at gourmetghosts.com and follow him on Instagram at instagram.com/gourmetghosts/.

A quick list of the locations we cover: 
Grauman’s Chinese Theatre
Roosevelt Hotel
Barclay Hotel
Biltmore Hotel
Holland Hotel
The Suicide Triangle (Cecil Hotel, Haywood Hotel, Rosslyn Hotel)

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👏 Special thanks to our talented partners:
Paolo Sbrighi for Musical Composition (instagram.com/paulosbrighi/)
Mario Cintra for Logo Design (instagram.com/alacarala/)


Speaker 1:

Hi friends, this is Leah and this is April. Today it's easier than ever to make and publish a podcast, but that also means it's never been harder to stand out, especially as an indie podcast. We absolutely love creating Dark City episodes for you, so to make sure the show is a success, we need your help. Easy ways to do it. Number one rate and review the show wherever you get your podcasts. Number two click that share button and send a link to friends and family you think might also like the show.

Speaker 2:

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Speaker 1:

So remember one rate and review, two, share with family and friends and three follow us on social media.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much and we hope you enjoy the episode.

Speaker 1:

Hi there, this is Leah and this is April. Today we are taking you on a journey through some of the most haunted hotels and infamous crime scenes in Hollywood and downtown Los Angeles. From the ghostly presence of Marilyn Monroe to the poetic capture of a murderer, we think you might find the living are much more terrifying than the dead. This is Dark City Season 1, los Angeles. We are joined today by a special guest, james Bartlett. James, you've carved out this great niche, exploring the hidden, haunted histories of Los Angeles' most iconic establishments. Could you tell us more about how?

Speaker 3:

you got started researching and writing about this topic? Yeah, sure, I mean. I guess it'll probably be most apparent as soon as someone hears me speak that I'm not American originally. I'm from London, england, originally, and I've been here in Los Angeles about 20 years and that basically led into how I ended up writing these sort of alternative guides to LA, because when I came here I tried to explore and I wanted to explore around the city as much as I could, especially downtown, which was where you know the city began, and I looked for some sort of guides, of which there were plenty, but there weren't any, particularly for the kind of things that I was interested in, which was sort of ghost stories and true crime and a little bit of architecture, a little bit of history, sort of all combining those in a guide. And so I work as a journalist. I'm a freelance journalist, so I guess I did what most people do when they move somewhere.

Speaker 3:

New is I started bar hopping in some of the places and I would talk to the bartender or some of the people who were working there and just ask them about the history of the bar that I was in, especially the older ones as opposed to the new ones, and they would often tell me stories, sometimes about celebrities that had been there, sometimes about how old the building was.

Speaker 3:

But they would also sometimes tell me ghost stories or stories that they considered to be, you know, unusual or scary. And sometimes they would tell me stories about the building's history, strange things that had happened, and I started to sort of collect them until I sort of realized this is possibly more than an article. It might actually work as a guidebook, like the guidebook I've been looking for, but the important thing to me was that I looked in the newspaper archives the LA Times, the LA Examiner which is a newspaper that doesn't exist here anymore and other newspapers from the era to see if there was anything that had happened at these bars and hotels and restaurants that I'd been to, rather than just taking everyone's word verbatim and just writing down. You know they say that it said that.

Speaker 3:

I thought I'd try and see if there was any basis in truth from history, and I was quite surprised to find out that there was, a lot of the time, some of the stories I was told did have a basis in truth and it just snowballed from there into one book and then it snowballed into a second book which was more about crime, which I got really interested in. So the second book was more about crime, again, at bars and restaurants and hotels, because I wanted them to be guides to places you could actually go, rather than places you know that you could just walk past and look at the sign outside which a lot of the guides tended to have and I thought, well, no, I want to go in. You know, I want to have a look at these places. I want to sit at the table that's supposed to be haunted rather than look outside and think well, that must have been great. I wonder what it's like inside.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's such a cool idea for a guidebook. I love that idea of having something that's practical but also going into like kind of reminds me of dark tourism a little bit, where people want to know what the dark histories are at times, and sometimes then they'll also get interested in the good stuff that's happened to. It's always compelling when you hear about potential hauntings or true crimes happening in certain places. So I found your work. When I was looking at potential topics for our first season on Los Angeles, I came across both books. Now that we are approaching the end of the season, we're having a hard time wrapping it up because, as you probably know all too well, Los Angeles could be its own dark city podcast and just go on indefinitely. So what we're going to do today is go through a few select locations that you've researched and written about. In both of those books, james, I realized, even though they're called Gourmet Ghosts, I don't think we really talk about restaurants, or maybe we will in some of the haunted bars when we get into. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

I mean, it was supposed to be like a food guide and I did talk about the food and the drinks that you could get at some of the restaurants. But I did quickly realize a lot of the restaurants you know change their food all the time and a lot of the restaurants you know change their drinks all the time. But luckily that didn't seem to be the thing that people were the most interested in. They were most interested in the history and the ghost stories and the crime, rather than the actual food and drink recommendations, although some places do have drinks that, like the Biltmore Hotel, which we'll probably talk about later that has a specific drink that honors something specific that happened there, and they still serve that now.

Speaker 3:

So there are some that are still in there.

Speaker 1:

So we'll talk about Biltmore Hotel, for example, in just a little bit here. But that comes to mind is that's a good place. You can go and potentially have a drink next to a ghost and you wouldn't know it. So let's go through these properties. They're all on that hotel theme because they've just got so many people who have been there for various different reasons, so they collect all of these different stories. But before we go into the list of hotels, I had to put in one of the sites you talked about in your guidebook Not a hotel, but very famous the Gromans Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard. It's arguably the most famous theater in the world and definitely one of the most sought out locations for Hollywood movie premieres, and it's also known for celebrity handprints and footprints in the cement in its forecourt, which is not to be confused with the Walk of Fame, and this is embarrassing, but I have lived here for 10 years and I have not visited either.

Speaker 3:

What you could. I mean. The thing is you can easily go there in a day. It's just a little day trip. It's walking up and down the streets along the boulevard and you can see the Chinese theater, which really is the theater. There's a lot of people I've spoken to who think it's a movie prop, but it is a proper working movie theater and you can see IMAX and 70 mil and stuff there.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I've been outside, but not ever inside. Yeah, I think people look at it and they think oh, because it's only got those little doors.

Speaker 3:

And I think people think, oh well, that's obviously not where you go in, but it is where you go in. You buy your ticket and you do go in there and it is a big, big cinema. But I think people don't think that because they've seen it on TV so often and, as you say, leofa, it's so often used for premieres constantly. I mean that part of town, that block, is closed off so often.

Speaker 1:

I also wanted to put Gromans on there too, because there's a few very famous celebrities that haunt this location. So can you talk about the backstory on that?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, there's a few, or allegedly a few. Again, it depends with some of these stories and whether you believe in ghosts or not, but certainly when I went in there the staff told me that they think that Sid Grauman, who built the Chinese theater, who was the big theatrical impresario of the time, built it in 1927. It cost a million and a half dollars, which was a lot. It's a lot now, but it was a lot then. He built the Chinese, he built the Egyptian, which is just a little further down the road, did a million dollar theater downtown which cost a million dollars, and a number of other theaters. He was a big impresario. Now he's supposed to haunt the theater. He's supposed to come in when you walk in, if you go to the right hand side of the lobby. He's supposed to check behind the curtains to make sure that everyone is watching the screen and that the screen is running okay and everyone's enjoying themselves.

Speaker 3:

But there also have been a couple of other stories, again related to the crime that actually happened, related to a couple of actors who were. One of them is supposed to still haunt the area. He's supposed to haunt the forecourt, actually where the handprints and the fingerprints are. He's supposed to have been seen, or his ghost is supposed to have been seen on the um webcam that they have outside. Um, and his name was, was victor killian. Um, he was in a.

Speaker 3:

He was a actor from the 60s and 70s. He was in mary hartman maryman which some of your listeners may remember. He played the Fernwood flasher, and in March 1979, he was found beaten to death in his apartment, and police were somewhat confused because the doors were locked from the inside. Oh my gosh, yes, exactly so he was found beaten to death. And then the very next day, another actor who lived in the area up in the hills called Charles Wagenheim. He was found beaten to death in his house as well, and so there was a panic for a while that there was a serial killer on the loose targeting older men. Victor Killian's killer was never found.

Speaker 3:

Charles Wagensheim's killer was actually the nurse who was looking after his wife. Charles Wagensheim's wife, lillian, used a wheelchair and she was actually mute, she was pretty much unable to communicate, and he had a constant carer, and this constant carer had tried, apparently, to cash some checks illegally and, uh, charles confronted her about it and there was a fight and she beat him to death. So she went to prison for that. But they had both been on the same episode of all in the family, which I'm sure many of your listeners will remember. They'd both been on the same episode of all in the family, which was then on tv soon after they'd both been on the same episode of All in the Family, which was then on TV soon after they had both been murdered. That really is, and so Victor Killian's ghost is supposed to haunt the outside and Sid Grauman's ghost is supposed to haunt the inside.

Speaker 1:

When you said it was who was caught on the webcam, it was.

Speaker 3:

Victor Killian, the actor who was beaten to death in his apartment, and they didn't find the killer.

Speaker 3:

And when you said they were on the webcam, like what was on the webcam, Well it's just a strange sort of a figure of what seemed to be a man but going backwards and forwards, seen quite often on the webcam, and people couldn't understand what he was doing because it looked like he was looking for someone. He didn't look, he wasn't with anybody and the theory goes that he was looking for his killer because he met where he had been last seen, uh, drinking in a bar on yucca which is very close, very close to the, the chinese, and they reckon perhaps he'd met someone there or there was a friend, or they had gone back to the apartment. And so, because this killer was never found, he is supposed to be there still looking for his killer. Which is quite a common trope within ghosts and the spirit world is that the person will wait, looking still for their killer if it's someone who's unfound.

Speaker 1:

You know, I haven't heard that, which is surprising, especially as steeped as I am in true crime. But gosh, if only we could have them actually solve some of the pressing mysteries we've had throughout time.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it would really help and that's supposed to be. You know there would be some that would say you know, that's their indication. Once you notice that the ghost is there, there there's a reason that they're there and then if you look into it, if you ever do any research, hopefully they're hoping that you will see that their crime was unavenged. Because also, you know again, in many cultures you know you can't pass through to the next life if you have been murdered or again, if you have suicided, that you can't pass through to the next life until your killer is caught. Getting a bit deep there for that.

Speaker 1:

One of the hauntings I thought, if I'm remembering correctly or maybe it's the next site we're going to talk about is Marilyn Monroe. Does she haunt that site? I thought I remembered.

Speaker 3:

No, that's the Roosevelt Hotel. Oh, that's the hotel, that's right across the road, okay, right across the road from the Chinese Theater. That's a very old hotel, 1927.

Speaker 2:

They did the first.

Speaker 3:

Oscar ceremony and she stayed there when she had first arrived in Los Angeles, in room 229, apparently. And it is said there was a story with the mirror. But it said that one of the staff came into the room that she'd stayed in and saw her a reflection of her in the mirror, and was very freaked out, and so freaked out, in fact, that they removed the mirror from the room and it was down in the manager's office for a while. But then they put it in the lobby for a long time and they actually had like an etched Marilyn Monroe glass next to it and people would come in and look in the mirror and people would say you know, they saw the reflection of Marilyn in the mirror.

Speaker 3:

And then for a long time, about five, five to ten years ago, the mirror was taken down again and no one knew where the mirror was. There was a rumor it had been sold to Disneyland to go into one of their attractions. There was a rumor it had gone into storage. There was a rumor it had gone somewhere else. But then I went there most recently and it's back again.

Speaker 3:

It's a very tall, large mirror with a sort of curved top, but it's back again. And because I asked them, is the Marilyn Monroe mirror here? And they said yes, that was what I found in a lot of locations is sometimes if you ask staff about things they won't. They'll say there isn't anything like that here. A lot of venues don't court interest from people who are interested in the supernatural, whereas some do, and I guess Roosevelt has started to embrace it again. So I went up and had a look in the mirror, but I did not see her.

Speaker 2:

I did not see her and I can only imagine if it disappears. It's probably all too easy to make up a story about where it's at or why it's somewhere else or why it's been moved.

Speaker 3:

I mean there was the rumor that Marilyn Monroe, like memorabilia fan, had bought the mirror, that kind of thing because it's a large wooden mirror.

Speaker 3:

It's a lovely mirror, you know, but it had this, this story that she would appear in the mirror to people and people would say they would put it online, because of course I did a lot of online research and people would say, oh yes, I went there and I saw her in the mirror, but of course there was an expectation that you would see her in the mirror, so that one is a little more of a pinch of salt, but it's a very, very long-term story of a ghost at the Roosevelt.

Speaker 2:

So kind of sticking around. At the Roosevelt they did a major re-update and they had the grand reopening in 1985. Were there other ghost sightings at the hotel?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that's right, specifically after a renovation which, as you can imagine, changes things literally within a building in lots of different ways. Yes, there were some sightings. Children were heard playing in corridors and in some of the rooms running up and down, you know girls and boys. And there was a sighting that I got told about by some of the staff that were there and I read about a line of a girl in a blue dress seen by the fountain in the lobby. It's a beautiful lobby. Again, if you ever get the chance to go into the Roosevelt you can just go into the lobby and it's beautiful and there is a fountain there.

Speaker 3:

There was supposed to have been a girl seen, often in a blue dress, who the staff assumed was a guest or the child of a guest, but not necessarily so. Apparently the story was that it was someone who had drowned in the swimming pool. The child had drowned in the swimming pool. Now I couldn't find any evidence of that in the, in the archives, in the newspaper archives, but that doesn't necessarily mean it didn't happen, because everything isn't always reported in the newspapers. A lot of the time, as I found in the archives, there might be.

Speaker 3:

You know, there was an accident at a hotel in Hollywood. You know it wouldn't say which hotel and it wouldn't say anything specific. I mean, a child drowning probably would have been mentioned. But also you know it's a Roosevelt Hotel. It was where all the celebrities went. It was a very influential, high-end hotel. They might well have been able to say to the newspapers at the time, which were cutthroat, and there were a lot of newspapers in town, but even so they might have said look, keep this one out, don't mention this one. You know, and we'll give you the word on other cases. Because if you ever looked at the journalism from the 30s, 40s and 50s in Los Angeles, you know the newspaper people were getting a call, often before the police did you know, for things, and so there is a reciprocal, that or and there probably still is now reciprocal arrangement.

Speaker 1:

Right, we literally just talked about that in our Black Dahlia case. Well, and I get the reciprocity thing to a certain extent, but my goodness, they were brutal at that time. They were absolutely.

Speaker 3:

You know if it bleeds, it leads, and you know the Black Dahlia was particularly brutal. And people buy newspapers. You know it's hard to imagine now, but you know when newspapers were the primary source of communication, something like that happened. Everyone would go out and buy a newspaper. They would be selling them on the streets, you know, and everyone would buy those and the newspapers.

Speaker 3:

There were a number of newspapers across the land and they were very competitive, you know there would be sometimes several editions a day and they would have to have the best stuff. And the best stuff sometimes was stuff that you know we would think now. You know that that seems maybe in poor taste. You know they used to print suicide notes and they used to print, you know, pictures of the dead bodies covered in blankets, and you know they would put arrows from where somebody jumped from the top of a building to where they hit the pavement. You know stuff that you can't really do now, but at the time people of course loved it. I mean, it's just a different way of looking at true crime then.

Speaker 2:

As to true crime now, so if we swing back to the Roosevelt, it's got a few different themed cocktail bars and they all sound pretty cool. Have you been to any, and what hauntings are reported there?

Speaker 3:

I've been to a couple of them. There's the Tropicana Bar, which is by the swimming pool, and the swimming pool is really cool because it was painted by David Hockney on the bottom. So that's a beautiful bar. And then there's the Spare Room, which is a sort of a bar but also has like two little bowling alleys in it, sort of vintage bowling alleys, not for proper bowling, more sort of for fun bowling. But yeah, those two bars are there. I don't know of any particular stories in the bars themselves because I know, I know that the spare room is certainly later and the tropicana is later because hockney, okay, painted that in the 60s. But as far as the hotel goes, there are still a number of stories. Probably the most famous one is about again, hopefully listeners of a certain age will remember Montgomery Clift.

Speaker 3:

Monty Clift, the actor. He was in a film called From here to Eternity in 1953, which was Frank Sinatra and Burt Lancaster, wasn't it Very successful film? And he stayed at the Roosevelt in room 928. And he played a bugler in the film. It was set during World War II and he played a bugler in the film. It was set during World War II and he played a bugler and he would practice his bugle. He would practice it in his room. He would actually go up and down the corridors practicing at night, which didn't make him incredibly popular. But since that time people have heard bugle playing in the hotel, on that floor, even in that room.

Speaker 3:

Oh, that is an obnoxious haunting, yeah, yeah, I mean I guess, if he's in a shoe it's probably not that bad, but it depends on the day it is. But in 1992, there was a lady who stayed in his room and it is very common for people, especially with hotels, to ask to stay in specific rooms where something happened, like Janis.

Speaker 3:

Joplin. Um, that's very common that people that room is always booked you'll pay a premium to be in the room that she died in, and the same for montgomery clift, or that they don't encourage it that much at the roosevelt. But if someone asks for 928 and doesn't say you know, I want to ghost hunt, what are they going to say? So a lady stayed in there in 92 and she said she was moved from her room in the end because the coffee pot was coming on, the tv was coming on, the lights were going on and off, she was feeling sort of someone tapping her shoulder and she moved rooms in the end. And then she actually checked out in the early hours and they which was you know which was fair because she was freaked out. But they found out that she had specifically taken that room and had taken a ouija board in to try and contact.

Speaker 3:

Now, montgomery cliff didn't die there, you know he died there or anything, you know. He just stayed there but obviously some part of him had remained. So she obviously messed with things she shouldn't messed with and uh checked out what you asked for well, yeah, I mean, you're asking for trouble with that, aren't you?

Speaker 1:

yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, I don't know what kind of ouija board was it. It's hard to believe that a ouija board made by what is it?

Speaker 3:

hasbro the company there was actually a toy game. Yeah, I mean, you know you go back to Victorian awarding times. You know Ouija boards and something similar to that were very common and it was very much believed, certainly around World War I especially, that could be contacted. You know, because World War I so many people were killed around the world and people wanted some sort of closure to try and contact these people that they lost. It was very common. Then I mean, the Bradbury building in downtown which is a really famous, beautiful building which has been in Blade Runner and the Artist, it's very recognisable, the guy who designed that, the architect. He contacted his brother using a Ouija board to see if he should take the job. You know, but that was 1893. You know that wasn't unusual. It wasn't unusual that someone would do that and the answer came back in the positive and he did the building and now it's like one of the most famous in Los Angeles, if not the world.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that's funny.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Well, speaking of downtown, because that's where we're headed. Next, I wanted to ask you about the Barclay Hotel. This is the oldest continually operated hotel in Los Angeles. It opened in 1897. What the details are and you probably know this it's been converted now into affordable housing, but when it first opened it sounds like there was nothing affordable about it. It is still today a six-story boat art style building, really ornate decorations, and they had modern conveniences which we take for granted, like electricity, and that was very, very rare to have. Now, this hotel in your book there's just so many tragedies and crimes. It feels like it's competing with the Cecil Hotel, another location we'll talk about and we've done an episode on. So there's so much there, so I'm just going to try to hone in on just a few. So what did you find were the most surprising stories you uncovered when you were researching that long list of things that had happened there?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's interesting For a hotel that's been around for so long and is quite well known. Quite a lot's happened there, but it's not that famous in terms of the people knowing it. So I was quite surprised to find so much had happened there. I just looked it up because it was the oldest hotel and I thought, well, there must be some stories. But yeah, there'd been several. One thing I found that was interesting in research was elevator deaths. There were several at the Barclay Hotel, or the Van Nuys Hotel it was originally called. It became the Barclay in 1935.

Speaker 3:

Um, and elevators. Obviously, back in the day elevators were, uh, stop, start, they weren't electric, there was no um safety on the doors or what was my. So what happened? A lot, and it was nearly always employees. You would often be, you know, getting on and off quickly in relation to it, coming up and down and stopping it, and a lot of the time people miss time there oh gosh, step or whatever. And I wasn't gonna, I wasn it. And a lot of the time people mistimed their oh gosh, step or whatever, and I wasn't gonna, I wasn't gonna quote any of the stuff. But you know, people were crushed, crushed regularly, and again the other times. The newspapers would always report it and say his his legs snapped like pipe stems, was one of them.

Speaker 3:

Um, so that happened. There were several. In the barclay hotel um 1902, just just five years after they opened, there was a fight between several staff members, two brothers and the steward, and they fell out over. Apparently I guess it does happen back of house some sort of quip about their uniform or something, and the steward, who was called Lloyd Alcott, actually picked up a knife, a kitchen knife, and the steward, who was called Lloyd Alcott, actually picked up a knife, a kitchen knife, and they chased the other two out of the through the kitchen, out through the hotel into the street where they were sort of scuffling in the street, and one of the two brothers actually stabbed to death and died, oh my gosh.

Speaker 3:

And the other one was stabbed as well. So there was a really good story in 1915 about a guywig steiner who was german, just post-war, who suddenly disappeared. He worked there and he lived there. That was really interesting. Hey, he spoke a number of foreign languages. He said that he'd been imprisoned as a spy in japan. Why, you would say that I don't know. Post-world war one. But after world war one, when the war started, people got a little suspicious of germans, and this happened everywhere. And he disappeared one day, left all his possessions behind, just disappeared, and I couldn't find any evidence, uh, any reference to him after that. So whether he just left all his stuff behind or whether something else happened to him, I don't know.

Speaker 3:

But yeah, there's a serial killer well, two really, um 1944, um otto stephen wilson. He was 31, he was called steve the slasher. He was created by the newspapers. He was called the ripper killer as well. He uh killed two women. There was a 26 year old lady called virginie griffin who he? Um picked up in a bar on main street and possibly a sex worker, brought her back to the Barclay where he was staying and killed her. Very much akin to Jack the Ripper, sort of eviscerated her, cut off her arm. There is actually a book of. There's an autopsy book that you can get and it has the pictures from the autopsy.

Speaker 3:

Oh my gosh um, he, he, uh. He cut her up, put her into the closet. The next day he went out, met another lady. They came back to the hotel. He did the same to her. Then he went out, watched a movie, went to a wine bar and some police came into the wine bar, which was near near the hotel, looking for, I guess, the usual suspects. And the guy had bloodied hands and he had a matchbook from the Barclay Hotel and he basically confessed straight away and he said he had a long criminal record. He said he had a strange sexual complex and he said I went insane. That's what he said.

Speaker 2:

Oh, my gosh.

Speaker 3:

And in the trial they, uh, they used alienists, which is what we call psychologists now, to prove that he was mad. But uh, they didn't believe it. So he was executed at san quentin, but they were brutal murders well, that sounds like I'm sure there were more beyond that.

Speaker 1:

That doesn't sound like a first time.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I mean you have to hope it seemed like that he was caught before he did anything else, because it seemed like he didn't care. I mean it seemed like he was sort of making that he'd had some sort of psychotic break, was what he had made. But he did have a history of like robbery and assault and then later in the 70s, 1970, december 1974 to january 1975 so that's only like six to eight weeks there was a guy called vaughn or in greenwood, who was called the skid row slasher. His is a story that gets very little play, which I was surprised to hear about. He killed nine people in that time in downtown, mainly homeless and indigent people on Skid Row, which I guess is why the authorities didn't pay much mind to it.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 3:

One of them was in the Barclay Hotel, a guy called Samuel Suarez who was 49. He had a room in the fifth floor there and he was killed there by Vaughan Greenwood, who was caught for these murders, three of which he dumped the bodies outside the Central Library. So next time I try not to mention that, usually because I love the Central Library.

Speaker 1:

I know that's a beautiful building.

Speaker 2:

It's such a beautiful building, but one was outside the door, one was outside one of the other doors and then one was outside some of the bushes oh my gosh. Oh, that's horrible. And one was outside some of the bushes oh my gosh.

Speaker 3:

And this guy Greenwood. He'd killed two people already in like 1964. But that was again at the Barclay Hotel. So it has a gruesome history for something that doesn't get as much play as, say, the Cecil Hotel.

Speaker 1:

Right, which surprisingly manages to beat that track record beat that track record. But one question I have from all of those tragedies and killings that had happened at the property, were there reports of residual hauntings from any?

Speaker 3:

of those, or ghost ones. I haven't got for that particular property because when I've gone in to talk, as you say now, it's like low income housing, it's not a hotel anymore. So if the only person around was the person at the front desk and usually they tend not to encourage people the person I talk to is someone who doesn't encourage people to talk like that. But, as you say, talking about the Cecil Hotel, it seems hard to believe. Although I never came across any ghost stories at the Cecil Hotel. It seems hard to believe. Although I never came across any ghost stories at the Cecil Hotel.

Speaker 3:

It seems hard to believe that when something like that happens, and with such frequency or a number of times, that there can't be something there, it's just whether people you know, because people aren't going to call the newspapers to report seeing a ghost, you know if you think about it, they're never going to report something like that. The newspaper is never going to report it. Today, more contemporary times, you know people can go online and put what they think online. So there's been a huge influx of reporting in the last 20 years because anybody has an outlet that they can put a story Up. Until then it's really hard for any outlet or print journalism outlet to print a story about a ghost, because how do you possibly prove it?

Speaker 1:

Sure, you can't exactly verify.

Speaker 3:

Never was that yeah.

Speaker 1:

Basic challenges with it. Well, and it sounds like those properties are sufficiently haunted by the living.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I mean it is the same case for a lot of downtown. All the hotels downtown initially, when they were built, were all pretty much all high end, you know, because downtown was the center of Los Angeles, the center of the business and government as it government still certainly, but business and movie industry was very much based around there a lot. So a lot of these hotels were really good high-end hotels, built sort of in the 20s just in time for the Depression and the recession and then the war, and then the city started to move further out, to expand and there were more places that you could go and that you could stay, and so it just was like a slow decline and a lot of the hotels now, the ones that weren't converted into apartments in sort of the last 10, 15 years, became just lower, lower rent, lower rent, and then they became housing and then some of them just came off altogether and are now a derelict.

Speaker 3:

There's still a few left. I mean, even the Cecil Hotel's future is still pretty up in the air.

Speaker 1:

Right, Well, and then also too, around that time with the Great Depression Skid.

Speaker 2:

Row isn't too far away, and that was the city's policy was.

Speaker 1:

we're just going to let it be contained, even though yeah.

Speaker 3:

And that was where a lot of people still are is around a fair amount of that area and you know, and again, huge influx of people after the second world war as well, and they all needed somewhere to stay and they didn't necessarily have money. You can't have luxury hotels. You know, if you can bang extra rooms out and you can do rooms for cheaper, you're going to get more people well, about a half a mile from the barclay Hotel is the Biltmore and this building seems pretty impressive.

Speaker 2:

It sounds like it's a pretty large place, probably well worth the visit. How would you describe it?

Speaker 3:

You know, to be honest, it's the place that I always take people. When they come from out of town, I'll always take them. If we go downtown, I always take people. Downtown Biltmore is usually the first place I go. I mean it's huge, I mean it is a block. It's a block in size. It was expanded over the years. There's a large tower now which is residential, and then there's the hotel which is sort of like you imagine. It's sort of a bit like a trident.

Speaker 3:

It's got sort of three prongs that go in and out and I call it like a bit of like the grand dame of downtown. I mean it's 100 years old. It was 100 years old last year and it really is what you would think a really grand hotel would be like, especially if you go in at night when all the lights are on and the chandeliers and stuff absolutely beautiful. It's got angels all over the hotel. There's supposed to be a thousand various types there. There are large sculptures, sort of half human size, and then they're in the carpets, they're in the walls, they're everywhere. Uh, it's very, very, um, elegant and sophisticated. And again, it was one of the big hotels I mean still is. It's very, very still popular.

Speaker 3:

You know they held eight oscar ceremonies there. You know they were supposed to. The story says that the man who designed the oscar statuette did it at a dinner in the biltmore. He scratched it on a napkin when the movie industry was getting together to say do we need some sort of organization that protects our interests and celebrates our interests? Perhaps we should have an award. And this guy sketched something on a napkin at the Biltmore. So it has a long history. I mean I always like to say you know, ghostbusters was shot there for ghosts. You know there were several scenes where Ghostbusters were in the Biltmore Hotel.

Speaker 1:

I did not realize that. I know that the library scene, even though in the movie it's supposed to be the new york library, but it was actually shot, yeah right yeah, if you look, you can look online.

Speaker 3:

It's a cool thing to look up, to look up the shots, because all they did is put up, you know, like some plants and things like that behind it to cover some of the areas. But yeah, they did several scenes for ghost buses in their um poseidon adventure, the big ballroom from the Poseidon Adventure the original one, that was the Biltmore, and they filmed so much Mad Men in the Biltmore. I mean, you've often got a good chance if you go to the Biltmore that they're filming something. It's a lot for filming and, of course, as we said before, it was the last place the Black Dahlia was seen alive.

Speaker 1:

Well, allegedly.

Speaker 3:

Allegedly yeah. Officially it was the last place. As I found out, nearly every bar that was around at the time downtown says that that was the last place she was at just before.

Speaker 3:

But officially, as far as the police reports went, she was dropped off on the I think it's the Olive side now which is the Grand Lobby, which has big staircases that go up and there's a piano underneath where a guy plays the piano and they do afternoon teas downstairs. That used to be the main lobby, because it looks like a big main lobby. That was where she was dropped off and she said she was going to meet her sister, I think, and she went inside. She used the pay phones there aren't any pay phones in there anymore, but they did have pay phones then and apparently left through the other side because it's a whole block. So you can go in one side and come out the other side and be on a different street and then thence after. She officially wasn't.

Speaker 1:

Well debatable. There were some accounts that sounded pretty convincing, but that you know what. If you guys want to know more about that, you can listen to our part two episode of the Black Dahlia. Well then, I wanted to move all the way over to the other side of the 110, to the Holland Hotel. So this hotel is not exactly. It's not in terms of size. I think it's only 20 rooms, right.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's a tiny place. It's by MacArthur Park. It's kind of pretty much exactly the opposite of the Biltmore. It's not in the best part of town, it's not somewhere that probably you or I would tend to stay and look up. I don't even know. Every time I go past it looks like it's closed. But it was a hotel. It wasn't the worst hotel, it was a small hotel 1902 was the earliest reference I had to it, which makes it old, but makes it really old. And there was a really interesting crime that I found there, going through the newspaper archives, called well the Rose Murderer. Going through the newspaper archives, called well the Rose Murderer. That was the name again that the newspapers gave this guy At the Holland Hotel. The newspapers actually printed the room where it happened, room 307, because in those days again, they would print room numbers, they would print people's addresses, the addresses of the victims and the alleged assailants.

Speaker 1:

Why does that need to be printed? That is insane.

Speaker 3:

I think just because it is a thing in journalism, at least that I found, is that when you write a story about someone, they nearly always want to know nearly always their age and perhaps where they're from and perhaps what part of town they live in, which is fine. But you don't have to put their full address. You don't need an address, right Exactly, but if you're going from a police report or the police, they will give you the full address, and so, of course, the newspapers will print the full address, never thinking for a second, because you know that's not their concern. Is it that anyone ever actually might go to this address and do something about it? But yeah, so this was a guy called Otis Hall and he bought three dozen roses for $3. Can you imagine? Can you imagine getting a dollar, a dollar.

Speaker 2:

A dollar a dozen.

Speaker 3:

It sounds ridiculous but he bought three dozen roses and left them at room 307 with, had them delivered to room 307 with a note that said goodbye, my darling, I will see you in heaven. And what he done elsewhere where he was staying was, uh, tried to commit suicide. He was separated from his wife who was staying in the holland hotel. They had been I mean, it's a sad story in a way they'd been high school sweethearts years ago, but she had actually married someone else. But they had met again and they had married about nine months ago. But he was very jealous and they were separated. At the time she was staying at the Holland Hotel and he had been. I guess it might be stalking her, maybe, or keeping an eye on her. We would look at it. He was.

Speaker 3:

He had a bit of a problem with being drunk in public and it seems like he saw her with a soldier and he followed her back to the hotel and on the hotel, at the door, there was a towel on the door which I guess was the signal for you know, don't come a knocking I guess is the idea in those days or do not disturb. And he was very jealous and he went back there and he confronted her and he strangled her with the cord of her bathrobe, and so he left the body in the room and thought to himself right, what have I done? So he went away and decided to end his own life, but he sent the flowers to make it look as if she was still alive at the time that he was doing what he was doing, so that he would. He was making the big romantic gesture of commit, taking his own life, give it, sending her, sending roses to his, his former wife, who tragically, would you know, find that he had, he had ended his life.

Speaker 3:

But of course, what he was done, he was trying to cover up his own crime. And the reason I mean it's, it's pretty calculated, obviously, but the reason I uh, I mentioned it to you, leah, especially is that the newspaper again printed a picture of him, of otis hall. It's in the police station and one of of the police officers comes in with the box of the roses behind him in front of the cameras, and, like, shows it to him. And obviously he's not expecting it. And his face when he sees the roses, because he knows they've obviously got him and it's over.

Speaker 3:

But they showed that picture. You know, they printed that picture.

Speaker 1:

I'm okay with that. Yeah, it's a great picture.

Speaker 3:

I mean obviously he deserved it because he he'd murdered her but there were other pictures.

Speaker 3:

There were ones that I in the book and even on my website I I wouldn't pin them because now they just they just so upsetting, you know to see. It was a guy whose wife had jumped off a bridge and again ended her life and there was a picture of him sitting on the curb with his head in his hands as a policeman is like taking the details and it was the look on his face and you could hardly look at it. But again, the newspaper printed that. Yeah, because that's what people want to see, you know, you're heartbreaking from the horror of it.

Speaker 3:

When you see it as a newspaper or as a tv show, as a movie, it's not happening to you, it happens to someone else and we are intrigued by that side yeah, that was the holland hotel. The rose murderer.

Speaker 2:

They called him the roses of death so in a previous episode we covered the cecil hotel and a lot of the tragedies that have happened at that site. But what we didn't realize is the Cecil is part of what's called the Suicide Triangle, with the Hayward and Roslyn. Can you talk about how these properties got this designation?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, I mean I won't go on too much about the Cecil Hotel because you've already talked about it. It's been so well covered. But obviously that was in my second book at the biggest entry in the book. I've been there a couple of times to do TV stuff and all I can say is so much has happened there and I don't really have an explanation why. There's no particular thing that makes it seem like it might stick out. But what I did was, as I was doing my research for a potential third book because there's lots of places I've researched but I don't necessarily think perhaps good enough to be in a book and I noticed I mean I'm holding up a map now to the camera, which is not much use for the listeners, but it is like a triangle I would share. It is like a truck. Can you see that? That it is like a triangle. Can you see that? That can be? Leah and April can give their thing. It is a triangle shape.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

So you've got the Cecil Hotel and you've got the Haywood Hotel and the Roslyn Hotel. They're all within like a block and a half of each other, pretty much in a triangle. The Roslyn and the Cecil are both on Main Street and the Cecil are both on Main Street and the Haywood is on Spring Street. And I'm going to say that I can take credit for the suicide triangle thing because I put that in an article just because people love triangles. With my research that these three hotels had the most, by quite a long way, um suicides and crimes and murders. Of all the hotels that I'd researched all over, even just in downtown, I mean the cecil's, miles and miles ahead of everything but the roslyn hotel. There's actually two of them opposite. They're on the opposite side of the road.

Speaker 3:

There was one built and then like an annex, as they call it, that has, let's see, 13 people killed themselves in that hotel, five people in 1924 alone. And then the hotel hayward, um that six people have ended their lives. There have been three murders in there as well, and again some unusual things as well. The hayward Hotel seems to be a place where people fall out of windows. There were two men who were sitting on the windowsill telling jokes. It was a room and one of them made a joke and sort of slapped the other one on the back and overbalanced and they both ended up falling out of the window.

Speaker 3:

That was in the Hayward Hotel. I mean, it sounds like a joke but that actually happened. And again, 100-year-old hotels they were built 100 years ago and expensive and sumptuous hotels, but for some reason these three particular hotels I mean there are other ones that are not too far away from them as well but those three are in a triangle and they're like the one, two, two and three of the downtown hotels with the most suicides, the most crimes. You know the Cecil has snipers and baby murderers and arsonists, but the other two it doesn't sound a lot Six suicides in you know 80 years, but these are just the ones that I could absolutely.

Speaker 3:

You know 80 years, but these are just the ones that I could absolutely you know correspond to those hotels from the archives, right, you know, a newspaper report could say you know, a dead body was found at a hotel on 6th and main.

Speaker 3:

Now that's probably that hotel, but it doesn't say I intended not to put it in the book because it had to. You know I had to be. But as you said at the beginning, leah hotels. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people will probably pass through a hotel over a decade. It's open. There's going to be natural deaths, for sure, and there are going to be suicides as well and murders. I mean it definitely happens in all the hotels.

Speaker 1:

The issue with the triangle is because of its proximity to Skid Row, where you just you have so many problems, a lot of people who they're just in that location because they're in a very bad place. It's just, it's a very crime ridden place, it's a very tough place, and so you know the proximity of the hotels. I guess I could see that, but then there are other. Those are not the only hotels that are by Skid Row.

Speaker 3:

No, and a lot of the you know. The suicides especially, you know, were in the 20s and 30s. Skid Row was nowhere near as developed as we think it was today.

Speaker 1:

That didn't become like the huge Skid Row really became an issue after the depression, or like during after the depression.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, again, you know in a hotel. If you're looking for somewhere to go to be private, for a love affair or to end your life, a hotel is a completely logical choice. Before the age of credit cards and electronic banking, you would sign into a hotel and registration book. You would put your name down and they would just trust that that was your name. You pay cash for something, you put a sign or a note on the door saying do not disturb and you would not be disturbed.

Speaker 1:

Amy Price, the former manager of the Cecil Hotel, had talked about how, for a long time, that you could just put down cash you didn't have to have ID and then that changed later. Now it's just so obvious to us, but our listeners are going to want to stay at Airbnbs. Well, let's see. So we could not cover all of the locations and stories from your books, so are there any quick previews of other places that you can give of, like if people wanted to go and look at the pocket guides? And yeah, I would say if you ever get a chance again in hollywood.

Speaker 3:

It's a bit of a cliche again, but if you can ever go to the magic castle, it looks a bit like. I mean, I always thought it looks a bit like the house from psycho, but kind of like with. A bit like the house from Psycho but kind of like with a castle. It's the home of magic. It's part museum, part library. It has performance theaters and you go there to see magic shows and illusion shows. They have about five or six bars. They've got their several ghost stories there. One of them you know is Invisible Irma, the lady lady who plays the piano and they have postcards that you can get of her. But then there are other stories that are not. They don't have postcards of about one of the barmen there. That's supposed to be a ghost. And there's also above the magic castle, actually yamashiro, which is a huge sprawling like japanese compound. Really it's beautiful, beautiful gardens. There are a number of stories there.

Speaker 3:

That's usually a combo that I do those two places and then downtown a particular place that I really love is the fine arts building, which is on a seventh street. I think um. It's beautiful from the outside. It's got these large um figures like lying down on the outside luxuriating on the outside, but inside, just in the lobby, it's like an enormous Moroccan palace. It's absolutely beautiful. It's like gold and sparkling and there's a fountain in the middle and there's two little kids and like a child in the middle standing up where the water comes out. And they're the children of the architect of the building and he died just before they finished the building back in the 20s and he used his kids as the models for the fountain. And I've spoken to several people. I go in there every time I go downtown and I ask the security. They said they hear children all the time in the buildings.

Speaker 2:

Interesting and they reckon it's the kids, I do not.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean not's the kids, you know the kids. Yeah, I mean not for the scary way. I don't like child ghosts. There's something about child ghosts that just really creeps me out, which is so weird because they would probably be less harmful than adult ghosts.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, because it's always like I guess the bigger fear is something that's happened to a child. Yeah, and this one one I think it's nice because I'm like the children are there, you know, because their dad died there and they're still in the building, you know. That was a tribute to them. I mean, so rarely did I ever come across any stories where people were like frightened of ghosts. A lot of the bars and restaurants in, like the Formosa Cafe in West Hollywood, people were just used to the ghost.

Speaker 1:

They a cafe in West.

Speaker 3:

Hollywood. People were just used to the ghost. They were just like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we don't really think about it, we're just used to him. You know it's a guy who used to own the place. He's still here. He's still like bugging us to get get working and, and you know not, yeah, you know, and they were just used to it.

Speaker 1:

You know it's very rarely malevolent as they say yeah, that makes me feel a lot better.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so it was very rarely malevolent and I believed all the people I talked to. It was always the little details in the story, rather than something that sounded like a pat go story.

Speaker 2:

Right yeah.

Speaker 3:

So I tried to get stories and back up and archival and witness stuff for all the stories.

Speaker 2:

I think a lot of the times, the stories that come from the people that work in these places I find, I don't know, to be more genuine or valid. Those people are there not for the reason of telling ghost stories and not for selling salacious information or that type of thing. They're there every day, in and out, and they really get to see what's going on in the place.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean it's like the programs where people go into buildings with equipment and stuff like that looking for they have to find something because they have a program that they have to do. Chances are they probably spent hours and hours and hours there and nothing happened at all. But you're getting the two minutes where something exciting or unusual happened, where you go to somebody who's the security guard at night, you know, and you just have a chat with the guy's going to go. Yeah, you know, I walk around here at night and you know we all just don't go on the eighth floor.

Speaker 1:

James, any upcoming projects or books that you have planned in the future that we should look out for listeners should look out for I guess I'm hoping to do a book about crime and murder and mayhem in Burbank, which is where I live now.

Speaker 3:

We moved here to Toluca Lake about a year ago and so obviously I immediately started looking up places around here and I found some good ones. So there might be a book about that, because I think that's not really been an area that's covered, because you know Burbank people think of, like the movie studios, and you know there's nothing else. So that's hopefully that's the next thing I'm doing, but that will probably be next year or the year after. But I do talks occasionally, I do the odd walk downtown. You know, if people ask around some of these places and I'm always out looking for stories. It makes me sound awful, but I'm always out looking for stories. You know, if a new restaurant or a new bar opens, especially downtown, I always look it up. I look up the address because you know it's a new restaurant there, but chances are it was probably something years and years before. Yeah, and if it was there, but chances are it was probably something years and years before.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and if it was there, something probably happened.

Speaker 1:

Well, we are like-minded. I find the history just so interesting. So interesting.

Speaker 3:

There's nothing worse than what human beings will do.

Speaker 1:

No.

Speaker 3:

There's nothing weirder and stranger than what people will do. And again, you know 100 years ago. It's so far removed from how it is today. It's just fascinating to read about it Whereas contemporary crime you know it's so well covered, you know any murder trial that comes up is so well covered that there's nothing really to discover.

Speaker 3:

You know, there's nothing unusual that you can find. But you dive into the archives and you look up a place that you know. You look up an address of a restaurant from 80 years ago. No one's probably discovered that.

Speaker 1:

I'll link your website and your books in our show notes so if you guys want to check them out, there's a lot more stories in there, james, thank you so much.

Speaker 3:

That was great, very fun. It's always fun talking about these stories, thank you.