Talk:Silver Lake, Los Angeles

[untitled section]
This article needs to be improved - does anyone want to expand it? Should I put a clean up?
 * >|>I think a cleanup is in order for the longer entries. It looks like someone copied their blog to this page. JedJedGould

Gay Community?
Why was this Area written about as the Gay Community in Los Angeles. The "Gay" Communitty is West Hollywood. Silverlake is for hpsters and Alternative Artists...no matter what their Life Style is...besides Silver Lake is Still (as of this day in 2005) a Predominently Straight Latino Area...however the"Art community has a Comparitively large "Gay'population.

-Dave Teague

The gay commu"nitty"? Hehehehehe. That's rich. Made my bleepin' day. Love - the gay commUNITY in Silver Lake.

Silver Lake has been a major gay center longer than West Hollywood - in fact the gay rights movement began there. You're obviously not familiar with the area. The difference between the two, prior to gentrification bringing in hipster types and then yuppies, was that West Hollywood was upscale and virtually all white whereas Silver Lake gays tended to be working class and ethnically mixed, with a large Latino and Asian element. The Sunset Junction festival was originally a gay festival - gentrification has caused it to lose its gay identity. While there are certainly large numbers of gays who attend the festival, it is no longer a gay festival as it was in the 1980s. Ironically, the "alternative arts" community is starting to leave Silver Lake because it has become expensive, and are moving to Echo Park, Eagle Rock and Highland Park all of which are unquestionably "predominately straight Latino areas"

Yeah, I don't think there's much of an actual gay "community" per se in WeHo. It's the "Land of the Shirtless Male"; most of the gay men who live there are more interested in anonymous sex than in any sort of community-building. I'm sure the percentage of gay residents is higher in WeHo than in Silver Lake, but as far as social capital goes, Silver Lake is LA's gay center. It will be interesting to see if this is still the case 20 years from now, or whether it will have moved southeast (toward Echo Park and Chinatown) or northeast (into Atwater Village, Highland Park, Eagle Rock, Glassell Park, etc.) --Slightlyslack 21:20, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Typically the two main "gay" areas of Los Angeles has always been West Hollywood and Silverlake. You can try to pretty-up the wording as much as you can but it basically falls into this category: West Hollywood is where all the "pretty" and well-to-do gay people live and Silverlake is where the older more alternative/leather-cultured gay people live. It's that simple and has been that way since as far back as I can remember. So you can think of Silverlake as the "Florida" for older gay Los Angelinos which also has a lot of 20/30-somethings with piercings. Artemisboy 21:06, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I grew up in Silverlake, and it has been a haven for homosexuals certainly since the 50's when I was a child. In fact the old Disney Studios on Hyperion was once Mac's, a popular gay bathhouse that was shut down in 1988 due the rise of the AIDS epidemic. http://articles.latimes.com/1988-08-31/local/me-1204_1_gay-bathhouse. I often heard the area referred to as the Swish Alps by older gays in the area and it is reported to have arisen partly due to the prevalence of gays, such as Mack Sennett, in the early motion picture industry which was centered in the area. Nesdon (talk) 05:38, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
 * You are missing the point. There needs to be a WP:Reliable source for all this. GeorgeLouis (talk) 21:09, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

I thought I posted a reliable source, I have added another. Tho' I'm not sure where the cites appear here on talk pages. There are two footnote cites above, but here they are in the body of this text: "Gay L. A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, And Lipstick Lesbians" Lillian Faderman, Stuart Timmons, and "Bohemian Los Angeles" Daniel Hurewitz, UCPress http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520256231[User:Nesdon|Nesdon]] (talk) 18:19, 12 April 2014 (UTC)Nesdon (talk) 18:27, 12 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Quite right. Bohemian Los Angeles is full of stuff, as well as Faderman and Timmons.  I can't believe this article doesn't discuss gay history in Silver Lake right now.  Can anyone find the material that was (evidently) in here at one point to see what can be salvaged, or should we consider starting from scratch?  There are plenty of journal articles too.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 18:57, 12 April 2014 (UTC)


 * This article is awful. It looks like it was written by 22-year-old hipsters who think the world was created last thursday.  It doesn't even have a history section to put gay history into.  Argh.  Harry Hay started the freaking Mattachine society in Silver Lake, for god's sake.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 19:00, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Edendale
I think the reference to Edendale is not quite accurate. I believe the Edendale name predates Ivanhoe, and doesn't exactly refer to Silver Lake, but to a historic district on its eastern edge, mostly in Echo Park. There's a new article on Edendale if you'd like to link. --TomChatt 07:56, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

county?
which county is it in?

Silver Lake is a part of the city of Los Angeles which is in Los Angeles County --Freepablo 05:43, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

---

Wait. Silver Lake is largely in 90039 and some parts in 90026? My impression was that it was evenly divided between the two. The Sunset Junction is in 90029. A small part of Silver Lake is in 90029.

I doubled checked on the zip code maps, and you're right. a few blocks are in 90029. and between 1/3 and 1/2 is in 90026. it's been corrected. --Daniel Romero Cruz 08:43, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Trotsky
Did Trotsky really live in Silver Lake ?? GG The Fly (talk) 01:39, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Ivanhoe and Hugo Reid
I would be very interested in knowing the source of the statement that Hugo Reid first applied the name "Ivanhoe" to the Silver Lake area. This doesn't seem to be substantiated except by other websites, which also give no attribution. (If it is in Dakin's book, I missed it entirely.) It seems more likely that the name was first applied by the subdividers of the Ivanhoe tract (1887) and that the name of the reservoir followed. Nonetheless, the Reid story is intriguing and, if true, it would great to have it properly referenced. WMThomas (talk) 20:04, 15 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I have added a citation request in the article concerning the source of the statement discussed above. As the websites mentioned give no attribution, they cannot be used as citations. On the other hand, Mike Eberts states in his well referenced Griffith Park: a Centennial History (1996) Los Angeles: Historical Society of Southern California ISBN 0-914421-19-0 that Griffith J. Griffith gave the name when he subdivided the land in 1887.  If Griffith was using a name previously bestowed by Reid, that would be very interesting to document. WMThomas (talk) 03:50, 1 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, it says so in the Hugo Reid article, so it has to be true, right? I've added 'citation needed' to that article, as well.  --Hordaland (talk) 19:41, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

The reference to Hugo Reid as source for the name Ivanhoe came (unsourced) from a currently inactive website, silverlake.org. From there it has spread to Wikipedia and a book, The Silver Lake Chronicles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:648:8501:6840:0:0:0:99D (talk) 21:07, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

Notable Residents
This section needs pruning per Famous Residents. I have just removed all those persons who were not notable enough to have a WP article, but the remaining entries need checking against the other criteria, I suspect that a large number do not meet "The person's notability must derive from the location OR the person must have derived the basis for their notability in that location OR the person must hold some significance to the location in general". I also suspect that there are a lot of entries in the list who are notable but for whom residence cannot be verified so as to meet "residence must be verifiable through cited, reliable sources". Mfield (talk) 00:52, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Griffith Park, Interrupted blog link
I am removing this again for the third time. It is highly inappropriate and considered self promotional to be adding an external link to your own blog and that is what User:Hottertoddy has admitted to doing here. Without establishment of notability and a direct link to the text of the article, then this link is considered spam. Mfield (talk) 02:11, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

My blog is about the pollution of Silver Lake
and is linked to the LA Times, CNN, LAObserved, Aquafornia, LA Metblogs, Editor & Publisher and many other places. It is non-profit. I am a volunteer. I have never sold my work on this blog. I am a journalist in the LA Press Club. I have been published in over 200 newspapers and magazines. My blog is www.donnabarstow.com/park_blog

My blog has been deleted 3 times by Matt Fields. He is a photographer in Hollywood. His own photographs, which reference his work as a photographer, and are good publicity for him, are in Wiki. In other words, he publicizes his photographs on this site.

I suggest that my blog offers important information about pollution, the DWP, and the problems we have in Silver Lake. It should be listed with the other links on this page, most of which are self-serving websites about political groups in Silver Lake. I also believe that listing a gay sales site like Clubfly, which describes Silver Lake as a gay city, and points to all the leather bars, is a LITTLE more self-serving than my blog. Yet Matt apparently thinks that one is okay to stay. There is also a gay hospital advertised here. No other hospitals are listed.

Please let me know who reads this Talk page. If it is just Matt Fields I will obviously need to go further up. He is a problem. Hottertoddy (talk) 02:45, 1 August 2008 (UTC) Matt, you link to your own website, and also have your photos in Wiki. How appropriate is that?Hottertoddy (talk) 02:46, 1 August 2008 (UTC)


 * If you have links to stories from these publications then please provide them so that the merit of it can be assessed. You have to undertand that adding links to your won blog which will drive traffic is considered a conflict of interest and thus care has to be taken to ensure notability. Please see EL for the policy explanation. As for my own photographs, yes they have a website link because they are licensed under a commercial commons attribution license and the site provides a means of contact for attribution purposes. This is accepted policy. I am not 'a problem', I am following guidelines and establishing notability is one of the things that keeps Wikipedia credible. Mfield (talk) 02:51, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

This is what I was afraid of. Only one person covers an entire city, Matt, and it's you?! How credible and notable is that?


 * No, thousands of us edit all manner of articles. I think you have a complete misunderstanding of how wikipedia works. You should read Introduction and Policies for clarification on the core issues. I am no more responsible than you for providing cited proof of any information you add Verifiability. Mfield (talk) 03:56, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I have no idea what you mean here: "the site provides a means of contact for attribution purposes." Have you ever looked at a blog? Do you understand that I have links there that say "Contact", just like a website does?


 * If you re-read the sentence you will see that I was referring to the links to my website on the pages of photos I have contributed to Wikimedia. The site link provides a means of permanent contact for attribution information as the images are licensed to wikimedia under a Creative Commons attribution license. Attribution means that when the images are used for whatever purpose, they have to be credited to me. It all has nothing to do with blogs, yes of course I understand what a blog is. Mfield (talk) 03:56, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

If Wiki does not understand Technorati, I feel sorry for them. Maybe this is why Wiki doesn't "get" blogs?? Technorati provides validation for any blog. It requires a lot of credibility and work to be linked to another blog, let me tell you. If you don't know it, perhaps you shouldn't be looking at blogs and making judgments... Here is a [link] to technorati: http://www.technorati.com/blogs/donnabarstow.com/park_blog/?reactions Sometimes Technorati is a little wonky, so you may have to refresh it a couple of times. There are 40 references there to my blog posts, sometimes 42 or 44, depending on the hour or how Tech feels at the moment. Hottertoddy (talk) 03:42, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm a bit confused by what you're trying to do here, Hottertoddy. Are you trying to use your blog as a source, or merely to link to it on this page? Dayewalker (talk) 03:50, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The issue is about the addition of it as an external link - it is not referenced in the article text. Mfield (talk) 03:59, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * If that's the case, then no, the blog is certainly not an external link. If the only issue is that Mfield's blog is linked at wikimedia, then there's nothing really to discuss here. Dayewalker (talk) 04:03, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

It's up to you whether to join the discussion, Dayewalker.

I understand more now, and thanks to everyone: it's kind of like a game. Somebody added a sentence recently that reads: The SL Residents Association, SL Improvement Association, Committee to Save SL's Reservoirs, the SL Chamber of Commerce and Neighbors for Peace & Justice are all active in the area. And then those groups got to add their links, is that it? So if I add an important piece of info about the polluted lake, then I get a link, too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hottertoddy (talk • contribs)


 * I did join in the discussion.Mfield has explained this to you before, and after reading this section, I'll say he's been pretty patient. Blogs aren't allowed on wikipedia by WP:EL. If you think your blog should be different, please explain. Don't point to other blogs and links as examples, because other stuff does exist on wikipedia. Try and show why your blog is a resource that isn't duplicated by any other source. Dayewalker (talk) 05:15, 1 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, and if you want some nice pictures of the polluted lake, you can ask me and I will take them - as I walk around it at least once a week - and give them to the you and the community for free so you can use them to illustrate the point. That's the way we all make a better source of information for all, by working together and achieving consensus and by sticking to the agreed policies - not by jumping to conclusions about other peoples actions and motivations and throwing accusations at them. It's difficult to maintain any kind of credibility once you start hurling insults from a position of misunderstanding and at the least, incivility on WP will attract attention rapidly from block wielding admins who will block first and not have time to care why. As you are new and this whole discussion here is probably not something you want to remember, I will archive it all out off this page in the morning. Mfield (talk) 05:07, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

But what about the gay hospital, and the gay leather bars? They aren't mentioned in the article, so who will speak for them? Sad. Do you want to delete them, Mr. Field, or should I? Hottertoddy (talk) 04:37, 1 August 2008 (UTC)


 * You seem to be getting the concept a little. Go on, edit away, WP:BEBOLD. If someone doesn't agree with you then they will revert it. But do not add references to your own site without the consensus of a third party, that way you avoid COI. If you write in a passage about the reservoir that merits a reference to your blog, and you can establish the notability of your blog via a credible third party source then by all means go ahead. Just tread carefully as spam linking is something that will attract quick reverts as it is a common vandalism problem. You can remove links that you feel are inappropriate yes, but make sure you have fully read all the help pages on the subject before you get started or you will run the risk of removing something with every right to be there which might offend someone else. Mfield (talk) 04:44, 1 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I have removed a number of links that were innapproriate or had tenuous links to the thrust of the article, I was not singling your link out, I reverted your addition directly from my watchlist with tools that enable us to see what has changed without viewing the entire page and had not noticed how that list of links had grown over time. Mfield (talk) 05:07, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

"World Famous Sunset Junction"
What's with the photo? Why is this place "world famous?" It looks gratuitious or wrongly captioned. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.207.240.4 (talk) 20:16, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Contents box
Any idea why the "Contents" box is further down the page? Shouldn't it be above the "Geography" section? How do you shift it? 108.200.141.44 (talk) 01:24, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The Table of Contents (TOC) was placed lower on the page to avoid a huge white space if placed higher up. GeorgeLouis (talk) 01:58, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, there wouldn't be so much white space if you hadn't gutted the infobox. Even with all the white space the TOC still belongs further up. 108.200.141.44 (talk) 02:39, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Matter of opinion. I certainly don't mind your changing it if you want. GeorgeLouis (talk) 13:54, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Independently owned shops
Is the district noted for its independently owned shops? Then there should be a source somewhere that will say so. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 03:46, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
 * We know that. Just because there "should" be a published source doesn't mean such sources are readily accessible -- nor that the observation is inaccurate until sourced, nor that the article is more accurate if the info is omitted. The info can be stored here, while awaiting sourcing, instead of banished as though the observation is without merit or had never been made. I've frequented Silverlake since the mid-70s. I concur that the area has a history of boutiques, a reputation for being welcoming to diversity (e.g. the annual Sunset Junction Street Festivals), & relatively few chain stores (whether eateries or not). But many of the shops changed management & targeted-clientele following the HIV epidemic, which struck Silverlake harder than anywhere except WeHo. I don't know how much of the shopware is "owned" independently as distinct from rented or commissioned. PlayCuz (talk) 04:29, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Info under Population
The closing sentence in this sentence asserts that the high rate of singledom is due to the LGBT and hipster communities. While that may be partially true, it 1) places a value judgment, implying these populations neglect "family values" and 2) is unattributed. Would love to take out if there is no real reference. thanks--A21sauce (talk) 13:25, 5 August 2017 (UTC)


 * I just read through the article for the first time yesterday and noticed myself that that statement seemed out of place as an uncited claim that clearly needs a citation and added a citation needed tag. I do not think it implies anything about "family values" and don't really know what you mean by that. It sounds like a relevant and interesting fact if a source can be provided for it, but seeing as this was first brought up 3 years ago and no one has provided a source, I am going to either remove it or re-word it to sound less like a fact. -- Yarnalgo talk 16:48, 26 August 2020 (UTC)