In the 1970s, the Silver Lake, CA was a center for Los Angeles’ gay culture. The combination of affordable housing, a bohemian ambiance and promotion by gay real estate agents caused the gay and lesbian population to swell. Neighborhood bars Harry Hay’s Mattachine Society and the Black Cat were thought to be the originating points of the gay rights movement in Los Angeles.

Since about 2000, gentrification has intensified in the neighborhood, including the opening of many stylish independent boutiques, coffee shops, fitness studios, and restaurants. If you purchased property in Silver Lake around this time you, my friend, are what I consider a lucky duck! There are three main commercial strips within the neighborhood – Sunset Boulevard, Hyperion Avenue, and Silver Lake Boulevard. Many say the heart of the community is at the junction of Sunset and Santa Monica Boulevards, named Sunset Junction, and home to the festival by the same name that ran from 1980 to 2010.

Art is everywhere in the Silver Lake community, whether it’s in the form of a cult mural Elliott Smith memorial ‘Figure 8’,  a dilapidated Bates Motel covered in white limewash, or intimate galleries featuring handmade jewelry. Recent Silver Lake commissioned projects include “Street Medallions”, “ArtCans”, the “Electrical Art Box Project”, and the second annual “Make Music LA” created by several different artists, groups, and the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council Arts & Culture Committee.

Shopping in Silver Lake, CA is just as eclectic, with everything from vintage clothing, throwback record shops, Motorcycle Garages, farmers markets with local artisanal products, retro/mid-century modern furniture shops, and so much more!

Silver Lake, known as one of the city’s hippest neighborhoods, has many bars, nightclubs and restaurants.

Since the 1990s, Silver Lake has become the center of the alternative and indie rock scene in Los Angeles. The neighborhood was home to two major street festivals each year: the Silver Lake Jubilee, held in May and the Sunset Junction Street Fair, held in August. The last festival was held in 2010. The Silver Lake Jubilee, a more recent addition, featured live music by local musicians, local artists and community businesses. It moved out of the neighborhood to private grounds near the Los Angeles River and changed its name as of 2013.

Surprising to some, music runs deep in Silver Lake. It is home to various independent record labels and music studios including Dangerbird Records, Epitaph Records, Avatar Records, and Beggars Group. The Silver Lake Conservatory of Music, established in 2001, provides another outlet for local musical talents to develop themselves.

Silver Lake is often referred to as the “Williamsburg of the West” due to the growth in the indie rock music scene and it’s characteristics similar to New York City’s hip neighborhoods. Many of the local spots are rehabs of former dive bars, previously and mostly inhabited by gay, latino, and artists types. Whether you’re headed to Los Globos for some dancing, Akbar for a cocktail, or the Good Luck Bar for a casual encounter, there’s a bit of everything here – and you can find the breakdown right here!

Silver Lake was home to many early motion picture studios – it was all here way before Hollywood! The area of Silver Lake on Glendale Blvd starting at Rowena and extending down into the Echo Park area near Sunset Blvd was known as Edendale.  It was home to the early Sennett and Keystone silent movie studios, and the site of many movie firsts, including Charlie Chaplan.

During the 1930s, Walt Disney built his first large studio in Silver Lake at the corner of Griffith Park Boulevard and Hyperion Avenue, which is now the site of Gelson’s Market. As consequence, the name “Hyperion” is of great significance to the Walt Disney Company, with many company entities carrying the name, such as Hyperion Books and the Hyperion Theater in Disneyland, how awesome is that little piece of triva?

There are almost 50 public staircases in the Silver Lake area that crisscross up and down the signature hills that were mostly built for access to the long-gone Red Car trollies. Among these are the Descano Stairs, the Redcliffe Stairs, the famous Laurel and Hardy short film “The Music Box” (aka. The Music Box steps) was filmed here, and familiar comedy trio, The Three Stooges stared in “An Ache in Every Stake” filmed in 1941 on the stairs just off of Cove Avenue.

The area was originally named “Ivanhoe” before the turn of the Century by a Scotsman named Hugo Reid, who thought the rolling hills reminded him of his homeland Scotland. He named the area after a famous Scottish novel Ivanhoe, by Sir Walter Scott. This is why you’ll notice many of the street names in the neighborhood are Scottish or names of characters of the novel such as Herkimer, Rowena, Kenilworth, Ben Lomond, Hawick, St. George, (that’s a fun scavenger hunt!)

The Silver Lake neighborhood was named for Water Board Commissioner Herman Silver, who was instrumental in the creation of the Silver Lake Reservoir, located within the neighborhood.  Not a bad gig, ugh?

In the Silver Lake community lies the namesake reservoir composed of two basins, with the lower named Silver Lake and the upper named Ivanhoe. The lower body of water was named in 1906 after the commissioner, and the upper body received its name after the Ivanhoe novel.

By the 1920’s and 1930’s, with the growing number of residential developments, and the equally growing movie industry, city planners saw the development opportunities and started making the investments in underground utilities and cement streets. One of the most notable developers was the silent film star Antonio Moreno (the Moreno Highlands) whose development projects resembled Mediterranean villages he visited.   This landmark home, the Canfield-Moreno Estate set the architectural tone for many of the homes on the west side of Silver Lake by the reservoir hills.

Besides Silver Lake, the reservoirs are owned and maintained by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and could provide water to 600,000 homes in downtown and South Los Angeles, holding 795 million gallons of water! Only the smaller of the two however, Ivanhoe, remains online.

The reservoir is a focal point in the Silver Lake community and has evolved as a regional recreational resource, which includes the Silver Lake Recreation Center, and the adjacent city park and popular dog park; the Silver Lake Walking Path, (stretching 2.25 miles around); and the Silver Lake Meadow, modeled after N.Y.C.’s Central Park Sheep Meadow. On the northeast corner of the property is the Neighborhood Nursery School, which since 1976 has been at the corner of Tesla Avenue and Silver Lake Boulevard. It is a parent participation cooperative preschool, affiliated with the California Council of Parent Participation Nursery Schools.