Silver Lake Is Not in East Los Angeles

A Silver Lake advisory panel will take steps over the next two months to move away from describing the area as an Eastside neighborhood, a board member said today.

Not only is Silver Lake well west of the Los Angeles River -- the city's east-west divide -- residents in long-standing Eastside neighborhoods, such as Boyle Heights, say the description is confusing.

The Silver Lake Neighborhood Council voted 13-3 Wednesday night to revise its rules to say that “Silver Lake is not located on the east side of Los Angeles nor is it accurate to refer to Silver Lake as an Eastside neighborhood or community.”

Silver Lake is home to a racially diverse mix of about 31,000 people, including influential Indie musicians who helped earn it a reputation as one of city's hippest neighborhoods.

The neighborhood council is expected to get a draft of new language to be used in the next two months, said Anne-Marie Johnson, who proposed the idea for tweaking Silver Lake's reputation.

The neighborhood council vote comes as some residents of Lincoln Heights and Boyle Heights have lashed back against inclusion of communities such as Echo Park and Silver Lake -- both on the west of the Los Angeles River – under the Eastside label.

Anyone interested in visiting Eastside communities or learning about their
“fantastic” cultural and historical “relevance to Los Angeles”' would be “sorely disappointed” if they were sent to Silver Lake instead, Johnson said.

Johnson said calling Silver Lake an Eastside neighborhood was a relatively new phenomenon and blames uninformed out-of-towners, “maybe from New York” and other places, for perpetuating the idea.

She said Silver Lake is known for being an artist refuge for “individuals who weren't allowed in other areas, who weren't allowed to live in Beverly Hills, who are gay, Catholic” and “looked down upon.”

In the 1930s, Silver Lake was home to the first movie studio built by Walt Disney -- at Griffith Park Boulevard and Hyperion Avenue.

--City News Service