Additional information
by Michael Locke (Author), Vincent Brook (Author)
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 Anäis 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.
Author Biography
Michael Locke is a longtime resident of Southern California. He is a partner in the residential brokerage firm Deasy Penner & Partners. He served on the first Silver Lake Neighborhood Council as region one representative and vice chair. He is a regular contributing writer and photography chief for the Los Feliz Observer and an occasional writer and photographer for the Los Feliz Ledger and the Los Angeles City Historical Society newsletter. He lives in the Durex Model Home (Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No.1025) with his wife Donna Jean. Previously he collaborated with Vincent Brook on the book Silver Lake Chronicles: Exploring an Urban Oasis in Los Angeles, also published by The History Press. Vincent Brook has lived in Silver Lake since 1978 with his wife Karen. A longtime community activist and university professor (UCLA, USC, Cal-State LA, and Loyola Marymount University), he has written or edited eight books, most recently Silver Lake Chronicles (2014, with Michael Locke), Woody on Rye: Jewishness in the Films and Plays of Woody Allen (2014, co-edited with Marat Grinberg) and From Shtetl to Stardom: Jews and Hollywood (forthcoming, co-edited with Michael Renov).
