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23-418: Barclay Hotel may refer to: Barclay Hotel (Los Angeles) Barclay Hotel (Philadelphia) InterContinental New York Barclay Hotel Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Barclay Hotel . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to

46-467: A Van Nuys guest unsuccessfully attempted to commit suicide. In 1924, William Edward Collier committed suicide by swallowing a cyanide pill in front of a hotel employee who was helping him pack his belongings. In 1929, Consolidated Hotels, Inc. acquired the lease on the Van Nuys Hotel, which had lost its status and become associated with transient culture. Upon acquisition, the company renamed

69-640: A ladder while ascending to the sixth floor of the Barclay Hotel during a training exercise. Wong died from his injuries two days later; it was the first training death in the department since 1985. In 2021, the Healthy Housing Foundation converted the Barclay Hotel into a low-rent housing project for homeless families. The conversion was part of an initiative to turn 11 hotels in the Los Angeles area into affordable housing. At

92-530: A suicide pill is a form of risk arbitrage used by corporations to suicide during hostile takeover attempts. As an extreme version of the poison pill defense, this crippling provision refers to any technique used by a target firm in which takeover protection could result in self-destruction. Variations of the suicide pill include the Jonestown Defense , the Scorched-earth defense , and

115-601: A tiny saxitoxin-impregnated needle hidden inside a fake silver dollar was issued to Francis Gary Powers , an American U-2 pilot who was shot down while flying over the USSR in May 1960. According to Former CIA Chief of Disguise Jonna Mendez , the CIA hid poison pills in a number of items, including the caps of pens and the frames of glasses. Operatives would bite down, and the poison concealed inside would be released. In economics,

138-418: Is also used colloquially for a policy or legal action set up by an institution that has fatal or highly unpleasant consequences for that institution if a certain event occurs. Examples are the poison pill shareholders rights amendments inserted in corporate charters as a takeover defence, and wrecking amendments added to legislative bills. During World War II , British and American secret services developed

161-565: The Beaux-Arts style; it cost US$ 275,000 to build. At the time of its opening, the Van Nuys was one of the most luxurious hotels in Los Angeles. It was the first in Los Angeles to provide electricity and a telephone in every room. Two months after the hotel opened, a hotel room service waiter named Charles Gamble died from a three-story fall down the elevator shaft due to an operator's error. In 1901, another hotel employee named Joe Kato

184-558: The Corinthian order . Van Nuys, the original name of the hotel, is inscribed under the cornice on both of the building's frontage sides. An early Barclay-era ghost sign advertising $ 1 lodging rates remains on one side of the building. Many of the original ornamentations from 1897 remain in the Sullivanesque lobby. The interior features ceiling decorations, pillars, and arched doorways. Stained glass transom windows on

207-413: The golden parachute . One urban legend suggests that American astronauts could carry suicide pills in case they are unable to return to Earth. It is possible this myth was started by the movie Contact in a scene where the main character is given suicide pills in case she cannot get back to Earth. This was disputed by astronaut Jim Lovell , who co-wrote Lost Moon (later renamed Apollo 13 ). On

230-483: The "L-pill" (lethal pill) which was given to agents going behind enemy lines. It was an oval capsule, approximately the size of a pea , consisting of a thin-walled glass ampoule covered in brown rubber to protect against accidental breakage and filled with a concentrated solution of potassium cyanide . To use, the agent bites down on the pill, crushing the ampoule to release the fast-acting poison. Heartbeat quickly stops and brain death occurs within minutes. After

253-531: The Barclay under the names "Mr. and Mrs. O. S. Wilson" despite being alone. Thereafter, he encountered Virgie Lee Griffin, who was intoxicated, at a local bar and solicited her to his hotel room for $ 5. Wilson, described as a sadist with prior fantasies of violence and cannibalism , used a butcher knife he had purchased earlier in the day to stab and mutilate Griffin's body. Wilson abandoned a plan to sever Griffin's corpse into several pieces to be transported out of

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276-423: The city, most of the hotel's history has been associated with vagrancy and crime. Several deaths have occurred on the property, including two murders. In 2021, city officials converted the building into a low-income housing project . Los Angeles real estate developer Isaac Newton Van Nuys opened the Van Nuys Hotel on January 19, 1897. Local architecture firm Morgan and Walls designed the six-story building in

299-403: The enemy with suicide pills and devices which can be used in order to avoid an imminent and far more unpleasant death (such as through torture ), or to ensure that they cannot be interrogated and forced to disclose secret information. As a result, lethal pills have important psychological value to persons carrying out missions with a high risk of capture and interrogation. The term "poison pill"

322-475: The establishment to the Barclay Hotel and closed its dining room. On December 29, 1937, a wealthy woman named Elizabeth Reis checked into the Barclay. Three days later, she was found by an employee sitting in a chair with her skull cracked from an apparent attack with a brick found on her bed. Reports of the incident did not make clear whether or not Reis succumbed to her injuries. On November 14, 1944, ex-Naval hospital corpsman Otto Stephen Wilson checked into

345-423: The establishment. Hotel proprietor Milo Potter attempted to upkeep the hotel's image in the "teeming, wild" downtown section of Los Angeles, such as an attempt to shut down the neighboring 400 Club Bar because of the rowdy crowds it attracted to the area. Some of the hotel's employees stole belongings from suites and bar fights occasionally broke out between patrons in the hotel. In 1902, hotel butcher Robert Evans

368-521: The fire and seven were injured. The blaze caused $ 65,000 in damage to the building. On January 25, 1975, a vagrant named Samuel Suarez was murdered by serial killer Vaughn Greenwood , initially known as the Skid Row Slasher, at the Barclay Hotel. Greenwood targeted drifters in the Los Angeles area and was ultimately sentenced to life imprisonment for 11 murders. On June 3, 2017, Los Angeles Fire Department firefighter Kelly Wong fell from

391-541: The first floor depict Victorian era banquet scenes and one features a pair of seahorses flanking a Van Nuys crest . Suicide pill A suicide pill (also known as the cyanide pill , kill-pill , lethal pill , death-pill , cyanide capsule , or L-pill ) is a pill, capsule, ampoule , or tablet containing a fatally poisonous substance that a person ingests deliberately in order to achieve death quickly through suicide. Military and espionage organizations have provided their agents in danger of being captured by

414-415: The hotel inconspicuously. The body was later found in the hotel room's closet following Wilson's departure. Wilson murdered another woman at a different Los Angeles hotel the next day and was ultimately sentenced to death in 1946. On the morning of March 15, 1972, a fire broke out on the sixth floor of the Barclay Hotel. Of the 132 guests at the hotel, over 40 had to be rescued. Three people were killed by

437-485: The intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Barclay_Hotel&oldid=1193297780 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Barclay Hotel (Los Angeles) The Barclay is the oldest continuously operating hotel in Los Angeles. Despite its initial popularity among high-profile visitors to

460-472: The time of the project's opening, 158 units were offered for rent at a range of $ 400 to $ 750 per month. Local architectural firm Morgan and Walls designed the six-story building in the Beaux-Arts style with elements of Romanesque architecture . The building is cream-colored. Its second floor is made of terracotta scored to appear as stonework and its upper four floors are made of pressed brick. The exterior features several pilasters fashioned to resemble

483-509: The war, the L-pill was offered to pilots of the U-2 reconnaissance plane, who were in danger of being shot down and captured flying over Eastern Europe, but most pilots declined to take it with them. The Central Intelligence Agency began experimenting with saxitoxin , an extremely potent neurotoxin , during the 1950s as a replacement for the L-pill. According to CIA Director William Colby ,

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506-469: Was killed during a knife fight. In 1909, Ada Tilt Otis, an heiress from Chicago , committed suicide by ingesting poison in her Van Nuys hotel room following a divorce from her husband. W. Arthur Phipps, a Canadian millionaire, died of cirrhosis at the Van Nuys in 1911 after secluding himself in a suite for eight years in paranoia that the Black Hand extortion racket was targeting him. In 1920,

529-466: Was killed during an accident in the elevator shaft. On May 8, 1901, U.S. president William McKinley and First Lady Ida McKinley visited the Van Nuys Hotel during a tour of the West Coast . The two were greeted with a reception and a large crowd outside the hotel. Although the hotel was well-received for its luxury and often hosted high-profile guests, patterns of crime developed in and around

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