When you think of Los Angeles, the usual stereotypes probably drift to mind: surfers, celebrities, aspiring singers-actors-dancers-jugglers, etc. But there is a lot more to discover in my former home city. Including plenty of surprisingly scary places in LA.

Today, the dark side of the city lives on in some very unsettling locations in Los Angeles. Whether they are abandoned, supposedly home to spirits, a spot where many famous Angelenos have been laid to rest, or simply have a sordid past, these places have a scary reputation.

With a history of housing many mental institutions, cults, and famous tragedies, it actually shouldn’t be a huge surprise that LA is home to some of the creepiest buildings and places in the country. And therefore, a big center of urban exploration.

Read this post to discover intriguing buildings, abandoned towns, and places, as well as chapters of LA’s past that the city would rather bury.

To discover more abandoned, scary, and fascinating offbeat locations in Southern California, check out my new photo book, Abandoned Southern California: The Eras That Shaped the West, now available on Amazon.

Stay on Main/The Cecil Hotel

This historic downtown LA hotel has often rebranded itself to get rid of its reputation. It doesn’t change the fact that most people still consider this location one of the eeriest places in Los Angeles.

Since its opening in 1927, the hotel has experienced a shockingly high number of suicides and violence within its walls. As if this weren’t creepy enough, two different serial killers – Richard Ramirez and Jack Unterweger – made the hotel their temporary home at various times.

Recent Events at the Cecil Hotel

The Cecil Hotel’s haunting reputation made waves again in 2013, after the tragic death of Elisa Lam. Her body was found in the building’s water tower, and elevator footage of her shortly before her death showed her behaving very strangely. It turned out she was experiencing a mental health episode, and her passing was a tragic accident.

But people latched onto the young woman’s distress to, unfortunately, try to turn it into another ghost story on the property.

That being said, it is undisputed that plenty of horror and trauma has gone on within this historic LA building. Whether it is haunted or not will depend on whether you believe in ghosts. Regardless of its “haunted” status, it is indubitably one of the creepiest buildings in LA.

That’s why many visitors today come here to search for a ghost rather than see the nearby downtown sights.

Queen Mary

Appearing on many “most haunted places” lists, the Queen Mary is equal parts disconcerting and elegant. People arrive from all over the country hoping to discover spirits on deck.

One of the most magnificent ocean liners of its day, the Queen Mary is over 1,000 feet long; more powerful and faster than the Titanic itself. It made its maiden trans-Atlantic voyage in 1936.

These days, the Queen Mary has found a new life as a hotel with great amenities and restaurants. However, this doesn’t stop people from frequently reporting seeing ghosts in the rooms and on deck.

The reported sightings include a woman in white who roams the ship, as well as several children. People have said they often feel like someone is watching them, and other times they claim to see full apparitions walking around the ship.

This has built such a scary reputation for the Queen Mary, that the ship now offers twilight tours and seances to search for ghosts. The entire ship also converts itself into one big haunted house attraction for Halloween.

If you do believe in ghosts, legends say that over 150 of them are now walking around the abandoned ship. This makes it not only one of the most haunted places in the world, but also apparently one of the most crowded haunted places in the world.

If you don’t believe in spirits, the Queen Mary is still a pretty unique place to discover. Book one of the many tours that talk about the ship’s glory days, and stay in one of the luxurious staterooms at night.

Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel

You probably wouldn’t expect one of the glitziest hotels in the city to be on this list, but the Roosevelt Hotel is a Hollywood institution. And it has attracted a lot of urban legends.

For several years, the Roosevelt was a favorite haunt (all puns intended) for A-listers. According to some ghost stories, they never left. If you search online, you will discover plenty of celebrity ghost sightings at the Roosevelt.

Some people say that when they take pictures of themselves in one particularly lobby mirror, they see a woman they say looks like Marilyn Monroe in the background. A rare ghost that people might actually want to see in pictures.

Others experience otherworldly phenomena while in their rooms. Some employees say Montgomery Clift still haunts his former temporary ninth-floor home – suite 928. Guests have heard someone practicing trumpet late into the night, a hobby of Clift’s, even though the room is empty.

Hollywood Forever Cemetery

This is one of the few places you can access and explore with a guided tour. The property is creepy for reasons obvious right in its name – it’s a cemetery.

Half the historic cemetery was purchased by Paramount Studios so they could build soundstages and other buildings on the land. Most Angelenos today associate it with the outdoor summer movie viewings held there.

However, due to the area’s function as a…you know, cemetery, there are unsurprisingly a lot of ghost stories associated with Hollywood Forever. Some surround celebrities that are buried here and said to haunt the land.

Famous Residents of Hollywood Forever Cemetery

These include famous silent film star Rudolph Valentino, whose life tragically ended at 31, as well as Douglas Fairbanks and Judy Garland. But the Hollywood Forever Cemetery is also the final resting place for many former Angelenos, including Virginia Rappe, the young actress who died mysteriously at a party held by Fatty Arbuckle, resulting in the film industry’s first real scandal and his trial (and acquittal) for sexual assault.

One of the oldest, wealthiest, and most famous families in LA – the Griffith family – is housed in a mausoleum here. Griffith J. Griffith – his actual name – was known as a big philanthropist. He donated the land Griffith Park is now on. But he also shot his wife, so…it wasn’t all rainbows.

Today, some people near the building in which the family is laid to rest say they feel a bad presence. Others say they see the ghost of Rappe weeping, or the ghost of Valentino near his grave.

You can attend a tour at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery and learn all about this famous LA landmark.

Abandoned Places Around LA

Lincoln Heights Jail

Many Angelenos don’t even know about the existence of this abandoned jail in this location. Lincoln Heights is the city’s oldest neighborhood outside of downtown LA. Of all the scary abandoned places in the city, this building may have the saddest past.

Smashed windows allow glimpses into the strewn furniture and abandoned rooms inside the former jail. One of LA’s most infamous cases of brutality occurred in this building. That would be the unprovoked beating of seven prisoners, known as “Bloody Christmas”, that took place here in 1951.

Lincoln Heights Jail’s Infamous History

The LAPD responded to a report that minors were drinking alcohol at the Showboat Bar. When they showed up at the location, the seven men suspected had ID proving they were old enough to drink. The officers asked the friends to leave anyway. When the men refused, the police used force and started a fight, resulting in injuries to both the men and the police officers.

After the men were arrested and held at Lincoln Heights Jail, drunk officers decided to avenge their fellow policemen’s injuries. Even though they had started the incident by using force to kick innocent men out of a bar who had done nothing wrong. They took the prisoners out of their cells and systematically beat and abused them for over an hour and a half.

The Mexican-American Community (five of the seven men beaten were of Mexican heritage) called for the police to be investigated.

Though some of the officers were moved or suspended, no one got in real trouble for the physical harm they caused. It was a massive stain on LA history. Eventually L.A. Confidential would tell a fictionalized version of the night’s events.

Discover Lincoln Heights Jail Today

The jail was closed in 1965, and though it was re-opened as a school – the Bilingual Foundation for the Arts – it was shut down again a few years ago, leaving it in a state of disrepair today. In addition to its unsettling appearance, some believe it is also one of the most haunted abandoned buildings in LA.

It’s hard to access the inside these days, but you can walk all around Lincoln Heights Jail and get a glimpse into the interior.

Bombay Beach

Though it has been transitioning into a home for artists and other creatives, Bombay Beach is mostly famous as a ghost town in neighboring Imperial County.

The entire area around the Salton Sea was a thriving resort complex for Angelenos and other neighboring urbanites who wanted a break by the water. But preferred the desert to the countryside.

However, the sea has no outlets, meaning all the pollution that went into it had nowhere to go. Over time, the waste from nearby resorts and houses built up. It turned the sea into a wasteland and killed most of the fish.

Fish carcasses and bones washed up on the shore – you can still see them on some of the beaches – and the smell of death and pollution became overwhelming. It made living in a lot of the surrounding towns unbearable. Eventually, people gave up hope and abandoned them, creating a coastline of ghost towns.

Discover Bombay Beach Today

You can explore a lot of the buildings in this location on your own. Be warned that a few of the residents are still hanging around. Most residents are unable to sell their property at any kind of decent value and are stuck. Others don’t want to leave their homes of several years.

Please avoid trespassing on private property or disturbing any person who still lives here. Don’t get lost here at night either. Fall or spring are best for visiting, as the smell in the summer is really bad.

If you want to make a whole day trip out of your abandoned explorations, you should also discover nearby Salvation Mountain and stop at Slab City. The latter is a self-sustaining community that considers itself “the last free place”.

Old Griffith Park Zoo

Deep within the beautiful trails and below the great vista points of Griffith Park lies the abandoned Griffith Park Zoo. The graffiti-covered cages of the shut down zoo are a jarring interruption to the wooded, green grounds of the surrounding park. It’s no surprise they are included among the creepiest places of Los Angeles.

During the daytime, the stone zoo structures, surrounded by picnic tables, seem charming. But as the sun sets, many visitors prefer to avoid the dark, abandoned zoo.

You can easily access the zoo as one of the Griffith Park hiking trails takes you right by it. Walking around the park feels like taking a stroll in the countryside, so it’s a great place to visit in LA no matter how you feel about abandoned places.

Cobb Estate

Lumber magnate Charles Cobb built a private estate in the hills around the city of Pasadena in 1918, which would come to be known as the Cobb Estate. Though the forest behind his house was known as the “haunted woods”, there were no actual ghost sightings on that land.

After Cobb died in 1939, the Pasadena Masons bought the property, and then the Sisters of St. Joseph became the next owner. No one reported any hauntings or ghost sightings at all during this time.

Here Come the Marx Brothers

Everything changed after a famous family bought the building – the Marx Brothers. Suddenly, neighbors started talking and said they could see lights on in the empty Cobb buildings at night and hear strange noises.

No one knows what changed. Except that neighbors might have been easily scared and forgotten that teenagers and homeless people tend to hang out in abandoned buildings. And don’t care that much about conserving energy by turning the lights off when they leave.

See, the building itself was abandoned at that time. The Marx Brothers didn’t live at the location, and eventually, they tore the house down. No matter what they tried to do with the estate, they encountered resistance from the community. Which, if you’ve lived in Pasadena, may come as no surprise.

So the entire estate remained abandoned. The Marx Brothers eventually sold it off to the city in the 70s. Now, the Cobb Estate is a park and hiking area.

Figueroa Hotel

This 1920s Art Deco hotel downtown is a beautiful architectural landmark in the City of Angels. It’s also, like most older buildings in this part of town, kinda creepy at times.

There have been two murders and a suicide at the hotel, including the grisly death of a woman named Cecilia Oswald. After her body was found, her lover told reporters he “killed her because he loved her”, which is one of the most atrocious ways of thinking I’ve ever heard of.

At this point, I should probably confess that I do not believe in ghosts in general. And yet, I included the Figueroa Hotel because it’s the one time I had any related strange experience.

Personal Experience at the Figueroa Hotel

I had booked a staycation here for the weekend. Before my then-boyfriend arrived to join me, I checked in at the hotel and made my way up to the room on the 11th floor. One of the hotel employees used to be a bouncer at my neighborhood bar that I was on friendly terms with and hadn’t seen in over five years, so we had a nice little catch-up chat.

My mood was neutral, and I had nothing in particular on my mind. I took the elevator up to the eleventh floor, and as I stepped out into the hallway, I suddenly became paralyzed by fear and sadness.

I wish I could explain it better than that. An overwhelming urge to cry overtook me and I couldn’t move a single step in either direction. I felt intensely, physically afraid and absolute despair. After a moment, I forced myself to walk down the hallway towards my room and quickly dropped off my stuff. Then, I headed back down to the bar with a book to wait for my boyfriend. I didn’t want to be in the room alone.

When we were in bed at night watching TV, the second strange thing happened. The lights in the room turned off by themselves. I went to the light switch and saw it had been turned down. I turned the lights for the bedroom back on, and as soon as I lay down again, the lights turned off again. My boyfriend went to check the switch this time – the same thing had happened – and after he turned the light on, it went off a second time.

The problem can’t have been electrical, because the TV and bathroom lights were still working just fine. I just remember feeling very freaked out; coupled with my other experience earlier that day, it’s the one and only time I came close to believing in something paranormal.

Historical and Paranormal Tours in LA

If you want to discover the city’s dark past, or perhaps hear some paranormal stories, there are plenty of LA tours for you. You will find untapped stories from Griffith Park to downtown Los Angeles.

Click below to check some tours out:

What is the creepiest place you’ve ever been to? Comment below! If you want to share or save this post, Pin away!

For more abandoned, scary, and fascinating offbeat locations in Southern California, don’t forget to buy Abandoned Southern California: The Eras That Shaped the West.