Winds of change sweep skid row

Check-in at the Cecil Hotel had to wait a few minutes because Kerri Torrance, the clerk working the graveyard shift one night in November, had to deal with a heist.

A man staying on the 10th floor had called down to report that a woman had grabbed his money and bolted.

After the woman dashed through the lobby and burst out the front doors onto Main Street, Torrance called police while a handful of guests waited.

"She's right out there . . . you see . . . well . . . he said they were doing drugs, cocaine or something," Torrance told police officers.

Then she cupped the receiver and mouthed, "I'm sorry, just a minute."

This was not the type of greeting the new owners of the Cecil desire as they try to "re-brand" the 80-year-old hotel between 6th and 7th streets. "We are not a missionary, we are not a halfway house, we are a tourist's hotel," Torrance explained.

In its early years, the Cecil and hotels such as the Million Dollar, the Alexandria and the Rosslyn catered to the city's elite out-of-town visitors, and lavish parties were held in their grand ballrooms.

When the wealthy abandoned downtown during the Depression, the Cecil and others like it became residential hotels that for generations housed those who were one step above homelessness.

But downtown is becoming a hip destination again, and these hotels are sought by developers who say they can turn a profit by luring university students, working professionals and tourists.

A few weeks before the drug robbery, the new owners of the Cecil removed the fuzzy bulletproof glass from the check-in window. Dozens of new lightbulbs glow from antique chandeliers that hang from high ceilings in the renovated lobby.

Torrance said the robbery was unusual -- remnants of the "old" Cecil Hotel.

That "old" Cecil had quite a reputation. In the 1940s, it was one of the first public meeting places for Alcoholics Anonymous. It was later the sometime home of serial killers Jack Unterweger and Richard "Night Stalker" Ramirez, and is included on a bus tour of eerie Los Angeles crimes.

Some long-term residents, such as 77-year-old Saverio "Manny" Maniscalco (14 years) and 30-year resident Michael Sadowe, still call the Cecil "The Suicide" because over the years a number of people have plunged to their deaths from the building.