Mideast Los Angeles

10/11/2024

The 30th annual Music Box Steps Day is coming up. It celebrates Laurel and Hardy's 1932 comedy, filmed on a Silver Lake stair street. It may surprise you to learn that it wasn't the first or only film to feature a neighborhood stairway, nor even the duo's first!

Thanks, in large part, to its proximity to many early film studios – Silver Lake has been home to numerous film stars since at least the 1910s. Not all of those stars were human. There was, for exa…

07/23/2024

For the July edition of the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council's "Ask Silver Lake" column, I discuss the history and character of the neighborhood's beloved bungalow courts... and include a bunch of photos taken by me.

The following article was written for the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council’s “Ask Silver Lake” series — ‘Ask Silver Lake’ is dedicated to exploring the history and insights …

12/14/2023

Top 23 of '23: No. 10

Black Pioneers of Silver Lake

This year's tenth most viewed post was about two next door neighbors, friends, and pioneers in their respective fields of law and architecture: Loren Miller and James Homer Garrott.

https://ericbrightwell.com/2023/02/19/three-black-silver-lake-pioneers/

12/13/2023

Top 23 of ’23: No. 11

Houses of the Hallows -- The Semi-Tropic Spiritualists and the Semi-Tropic Park

My eleventh most viewed piece was about the Semi-Tropic Spiritualists -- a group of ghost-communing, free-loving, suffragist, proto-hippies -- that was timed for Halloween.

https://ericbrightwell.com/2023/10/13/houses-of-the-hallows-the-semi-tropic-spiritualists-and-the-semi-tropic-park/

12/13/2023

: Elysian Heights

Elysian Park opened in 1886. Scottish immigrant John S. Maltman’s Elysian Heights Tract opened c. 1887. In 1952, a cat wandered into Elysian Heights Elementary and was named “Room 8.” He soon after became the most famous cat in the world.

12/11/2023

Top 23 of '23: No. 14

A History of 1717 Silver Lake Boulevard

The 14th most viewed piece was about the history of the building that most Silver Lakers remember being home to the Satellite, Spaceland, or Dreams of L.A.

https://ericbrightwell.com/2023/07/29/a-history-of-1717-silver-lake-boulevard/

12/05/2023

Top 23 of ‘23: No. 20

"SLHC Interview with Eric Brightwell, Silver Lake entrepreneur and cartographer."

I was interviewed, as suggested by the title (not mine) by the Silver Lake History Collective. Have a watch, if you’ve got fifty minutes to spare (or 25, if you increase the playback speed). …

12/04/2023

The latest California Fool's Gold -- an exploration of Elysian Heights and a guided tour. Former home to the first internet famous cat -- before there was an internet.

INTRODUCTION The other day I explored Elysian Heights, a small neighborhood in Mideast Los Angeles that’s usually characterized as being part of Echo Park — despite its having been subdivided befor…

11/30/2023

: K**bHill

The K**b Hill Tract opened around 1886. It’s home to attractive apartments including the Ansonia (1916) and the Asbury (1924). The first American location of El Pollo Loco opened there in 1980. The Frida Kahlo Theater opened there in 1994.

11/30/2023

Check out Tony Pierce's podcast, Hear in LA -- specifically -- the one on which I'm a guest.

Eric Brightwell is all the things you’d want in a neighbor. He’s been around for seemingly forever, he rides his bike everywhere when he’s not on the bus, he...

11/27/2023

: Westlake

Westlake Park opened in 1890. It was renamed MacArthur Park in 1942. The surrounding neighborhood of Westlake is the city’s second most populous. The vibrant neighborhood is notable for its large Central American population, diverse restaurants, and historic architecture.

11/14/2023

: Victor Heights
A syndicate of eight men subdivided Victor Heights in 1886. Its namesake was Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines, Quebec-born “water king,” Victor Beaudry. It’s dominated by the former the now-residential Metropolitan Water District Headquarters (1973) and home to Eastside Deli (1929).