Silver Lake Bohemia: A History

Since the early 1900s, Silver Lake has been a magnet for iconoclastic writers, architects and political activists. Famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who designed the Hollyhock House for socialist and oil heiress Aline Barnsdall, drew a wave of visionary modernists to the area. Local civil rights advocate Loren Miller spearheaded the fight against housing discrimination. Silver Lake’s Black Cat bar and Harry Hay’s Mattachine Society were central to the early gay rights movement. Literary artists Anais Nin and James Leo Herlihy made the neighborhood their home, as did other notables like first lady of baseball Effa Manley and Hobo Millionaire James Eads How. Michael Locke and Vincent Brook chronicle these and other people and places that helped make Silver Lake the bohemian epicenter of Los Angeles.