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The Mysterious Case Of Elisa Lam

catseye said:
Partying on the roof is as likely to cause falls from said roof as water tank deaths, do they have to net the entire roof to prevent falls when nobody is going to access the roof by accident?
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:eyeroll:

The idea is, of course, that the guests should not be allowed to access the roof easily. It might cost the owners some money to prevent that, so that's not likely to happen in a place like this. A couple of padlocks for the water tanks seems like a good idea no matter what. I wonder if the owners of the place were even given a slap on the wrist for their irresponsible behavior.
 
Austin Popper said:
:eyeroll:

The idea is, of course, that the guests should not be allowed to access the roof easily. It might cost the owners some money to prevent that, so that's not likely to happen in a place like this. A couple of padlocks for the water tanks seems like a good idea no matter what. I wonder if the owners of the place were even given a slap on the wrist for their irresponsible behavior.
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I'm sure I read that Ms Lam had taken photos from the roofs of buildings, so her access to this roof was not a one off.
 
Austin Popper said:
:eyeroll:

The idea is, of course, that the guests should not be allowed to access the roof easily. It might cost the owners some money to prevent that, so that's not likely to happen in a place like this. A couple of padlocks for the water tanks seems like a good idea no matter what. I wonder if the owners of the place were even given a slap on the wrist for their irresponsible behavior.
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I don't think I have ever seen a water tank that has been padlocked. Admittedly I haven't conducted much of a forensic-level investigation, but many of the buildings I've worked in have had roof-based water tanks and they have all been accessible. Indeed, many of them have been open to the sky. I'd guess that the regular maintenance that these things need would mean that access needs to be swift and easy which precludes any form of locking mechanism and they rely either on inaccessibility through being on the roof or just tight fitting lids.

You can get on the roof of almost any building if you are determined enough.
 
Ringo said:
IIRC the door to the roof was alarmed and working but guests could access the roof from the fire escape. That's one of the reasons why the initial search didn't include the roof - the alarm had never sounded.

In 2019 I stayed with my family in a budget hotel in the UK and after a few days I ordered a taxi. The operator asked me a weird question, "Do you have the money to pay for it?". I replied that i did but thought it was a bit strange. The taxi never showed up and I was late to an appointment. I called again to complain and the opertaor apologised saying that the local council were using that hotel as a place to house vulnerable people. Some were newly out of jail, there were people with addiction problems and some with mental illnesses. As a result, people were ordering taxis but didn't have the means to pay for them. So they stopped sending taxis there just in case. They sent another sharpish.

It turns out that the entire ground floor was being used in this way but no one told us when we booked or checked in. After we were told it became obvious really (just by seeing who was hanging around outside) but before that we hadn't really noticed. It helped being in Covid quarantine so we didn't interact with any other guests.
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Many years ago in my job I was asked for hotel recommendations for some visitors. Young and naive, and no trip advisor, I told them cheerfully there was a hotel literally up the road. It wasn't the poshest of buildings, and my only point of reference was that I had been there ten years prior for a family meal that was nice.
The visitors arrived in the office after their stay and said how horrible it had been - people roamed the halls all night yelling and shouting. It turned out the hotel had for a number of years been used for similar people by the council. (I found out afterwards the local rumour mill also said refugees and blamed them, but I refused to believe that as the stories being told were clearly coming from a racist view rather than any actual experiences)

I was never asked for recommendations after that.
 
A tour of The Cecil Hotel taking in the elevator game, both of Elisa Lam's rooms, Richard Ramirez's room and the roof top water towers. This is the most thorough video I've been able to find so far filmed inside the hotel.

 
Swifty said:
A tour of The Cecil Hotel taking in the elevator game, both of Elisa Lam's rooms, Richard Ramirez's room and the roof top water towers. This is the most thorough video I've been able to find so far filmed inside the hotel.

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That was once a nice hotel, when it was built. But I guess it never really recovered from the Great Depression and the neighbourhood went downhill. Now, it's just... sinister. Not helped at all by the dim lighting and lack of staff in the lobby.
 
Swifty said:
A tour of The Cecil Hotel taking in the elevator game, both of Elisa Lam's rooms, Richard Ramirez's room and the roof top water towers. This is the most thorough video I've been able to find so far filmed inside the hotel.

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Why can't they just leave the poor girl alone. This makes me really uncomfortable.
 
Mr. Banooka said:
Why can't they just leave the poor girl alone. This makes me really uncomfortable.
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I know what you mean. The more that I’ve looked over this case (and it’s been by dipping into this thread, reading articles, stumbling on blogs and YouTube videos) increasingly I find myself feeling the same way. This is a person who still has living family, who almost certainly ended her life in a state of high anxiety and distress.

When that Netflix documentary about the Cecil came out they had a whole section of that focusing on Elias Lam’s personal and travel blog on Tumblr. Both me and the other half watched that together while we were still very much at home during the pandemic. And we were both a bit freaked out by it. Because seeing the posts and the name of the blog? We had both been following that account in the early 2010s. I don’t think I ever directly interacted with her, but I’m pretty sure I’d liked posts probably even reblogged them.

I had never put two and and two together. How many years had I been posting and speculating about this? Realising that this was somebody I was actually within a social feed virtual touching distance of made me feel a bit shitty, if I’m honest.

I do have serious questions over how Elisa Lam’s has been reported (both in terms of journalism but also absolutely in the patchy documentation of the investigation, on the part of the authorities) but sadly I don’t think she will be left alone. Because to many the Cecil Hotel is modern folklore. ‘The Murder Hotel’. A dark tourism spot. And when an individual becomes part of a folklore like that the reality of actual history and respect for those involved frequently gets forgotten about.
 
I haven't looked yet but I suspect that there must be haunted stories from Hotel Chelsea in New York. Not just from Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen staying tbere.
 
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