Ask Silver Lake – Silver Lake’s Original Libraries
- Eric Brightwell
- Nov 11
- 10 min read
Updated: Nov 14
“Ask Silver Lake” is dedicated to exploring the history and insights of our community. If you have questions or ideas you’d like us to consider, please drop a comment or send them to outreach@silverlakenc.org.
All the best Silver Lakers know and love the Silver Lake Branch Library. As library lovers, though, we sadly have to find other outlets for our affections for the time being because the library was closed on 28 July 2025 and isn't scheduled to re-open until 16 December 2025.
...early 2026.
When it re-opens, the library will have a new roof, new carpeting, LED lights, electric heating, and other eco-friendly upgrades. I don't know if the landscape, designed by Mia Lehrer, will be upgraded to. In 2019 and with Lehrer's blessing, a group of volunteers (including me) planted some natives but none of them seem to have taken root, as it were. Conceivably, the allelopathic, non-native, invasive ice plants that were part of Lehrer’s original design have altered the soil composition sufficiently to the point that it's no longer native-friendly. Restoring the soil probably requires the removal of the ice plants, the planting of "nurse" plants to counteract the phytotoxins in the soil, and more time.
A couple of weeks ago, at the behest of the Echo Park Historical Society, I gave a presentation on Elysian Heights' Semi-Tropic Spiritualists Association at the Edendale Branch Library. The name of the library got me thinking. The Edendale Library opened in 2004, long after the Edendale name had faded from most maps and daily speech. The library, too, is located in a part of Echo Park that was not especially associated with Edendale, either, which was a tract overlapping modern-day Silver Lake and Echo Park near the terminus of the 2 Freeway. On top of that, there is also an older Echo Park Branch Library, located in the Temple-Beaudry area of greater Echo Park. I asked one of the librarians, Daniel Tures, if there had been an earlier Edendale Library -- from the era when there still was an Edendale, and he told me that there had been... and he even showed me a framed picture of it hanging of the wall of the very meeting room in which we were standing. I wrongly assumed that it must've been demolished so imagine my surprise when he told me that, no, in fact, it was still located on the other side of the freeway in Silver Lake!
BEFORE THERE WAS A LIBRARY
The Silver Lake Library didn’t replace an existing library, exactly, or even a bookstore. After A Different Light closed in 1992, There was Circus of Books – which did stock some literary tomes -- but was better known for other products and activities. Little Free Libraries and similar public bookcases have dotted the local landscape since about 2010 -- but for a neighborhood so associated with the arts (and home to writers like Raymond Chandler, Anaïs Nin, Charles Bukowski, James Leo Herlihy, Lynda Obst, Meredith Maran, Janet Fitch, Danzy Senna, Charles Fleming,Vincent Brook, and Patrick Somerville) it’s rather surprising just how long Silver Lake went without a local library (and continues to go without a bookstore).
The Friends of the Silver Lake Library was formed in 2004 to raise funds and advocate for the construction of a neighborhood branch library. M2A Architects (Milofsky, Michali & Cox Architects) designed it, inspired by Richard Neutra's architecture -- and it opened on 16 November 2009. Before the library was constructed, that vacant lot was used, seasonally, as a Christmas tree lot. Earlier in the 1990s, it nearly became home to a drive-through pharmacy and, before that, (and at the other end of the health spectrum) a drive-through Burger King. By the time the library opened, there hadn't been a public library in Silver Lake for half a century. It will surprise you -- as it surprised me -- that, depending on how you define Silver Lake, there used to be not just one library, but two.
THE ALESSANDRO BRANCH LIBRARY
Besides the Edendale Library, there was also the shorter-lived Alessandro Branch Library. It opened at 2641 Partridge Avenue on 13 October 1926. It was designed by the architectural firm of Weston & Weston and built by J. Earnest Randall at a cost of $8,300 (roughly $150,000 today). Although described in documents as “Spanish Colonial Revival” in style, I invite the reader to judge for themself whether this seems accurate. It’s worth noting, that Alessandro – although presumably named after the street, also has literary roots. Alessandro is the name of the Native lover of the titular heroine ofHelen Hunt Jackson’s 1884 novel, Ramona.
The library's location (at the border of Silver Lake, Elysian Heights, and Elysian Valley) was so close to the older Edendale Library that, from the get-go, it was viewed by some as redundant and thus threatened with closure not long after it opened. It did close on 1 August 1941 and was afterward rented to the Los Angeles Baptist City Mission Society. It remained in use by that church at least as late as 1953 and was demolished, it seems, well before the construction of the Golden State Freeway/Glendale Freeway Interchange, which opened there in 1961.
THE EDENDALE LIBRARY
The Edendale Library was the primary library for the neighborhood. Plans for its construction seem to have gone back to at least 1921, when the Los Angeles Public Library Board of Directors published a listing for it in their annual report. The Edendale Branch Library opened on 22 October 1923.
The Edendale Library was designed by Illinois-born architect Clarence Eugene Noerenberg, who established his Los Angeles in 1919 after serving in the First World War. Norenberg also designed the Jefferson Branch Library (now the Vassie D. Wright Memorial Branch Library) and (with his partner, Harold S. Johnson), the long ago-closed Helen Hunt Jackson Branch Library. It was constructed by the firm of Marvin & Marvin at a cost of $8,000. At some point, the attractive windows were replaced with cheaper-looking ones and the big window facing the street, like the rest of the building, was buried beneath greige stucco.
Moses Langley Wicks founded the community of Edendale in 1902. After the Selig Polyscope Company opened the first permanent film studio in Los Angeles in the Edendale in 1909, the community quickly emerged as the first hub of West Coast filmmaking. By the 1920s, however, most of the film production had already relocated to Hollywood, Culver City, the San Fernando Valley, and byeond. Mack Sennett's studio was the last to operate in Edendale. Sennett closed it in 1928. It still looms over the nearby Jack in the Box. It was bought by Public Storage in 1987 from Soul Train producer Don Cornelius -- but that story is one for "Ask Echo Park."
By the early 1920s, the Semi-Tropic Spiritualists had abandoned the nearby Semi-Tropic Park -- although Pacific Electric Railway's (PE) Edendale & Semi-Tropic ParkLine terminated at that stop until 1940. Even without studios and Spiritualists, the Bohemian character of the community continued. Drag superstar, Eltinge still lived in their mansion on the hill, Villa Capistrano, and Rudolph Schindler had begun designing Modernist homes in Silver Lake, beginning in 1923.
Perhaps shaken by the Great Depression, Angeleno voters rejected an amendment that would have stabilized the revenue of public libraries in May 1939, imperiling the Edendale Library. The Board of Library Commissioners slashed their budget and, in 1940, announced that the Edendale Branch Library was to be relocated to Tujunga. Los Angeles City Council, though, requested that it remain in Silver Lake. and it did. In the following decade, it hosted art exhibitions as well as at least one presentation by local resident and architect, Richard Neutra.
Library funding was again slashed, however, and Edendale was again threatened with closure in 1940. Although the economy had, by that time, rebounded -- the Red Scare was also ramping up and investment in public goods like libraries was increasingly characterized as communistic and un-American. The Edendale Branch, though, managed to hang on. Its death knell would be dealt, it seems, not by the Board of Library Commissioners but, rather, theCalifornia Highway Commission.
THE FALL OF EDENDALE
In 1955, the Commission approved the construction of the Glendale Freeway, which would run right next to the library on PE's right-of-way, which abutted the library's property line. PE’s Glendale-Burbank Line ended service on 19 June 1955. Construction of the adjacent section of freeway began in 1957 and, in 1958, the first freeway traffic began rumbling past the library, just seventy feet away. The Edendale Library closed forever on 22 May 1959.
THE FIRST UKRAINIAN EVANGELICAL BAPTIST CHURCH LOS ANGELES
Although the library ceased to exist, a new chapter followed when, in 1963, the building was offered for a a minimum bid of $10,500 ($112,000 today). In 1964, it became the home of the First Ukrainian Evangelical Baptist Church Los Angeles. That church continued to be the building's tenant for roughly 45 years -- quite a bit longer than its incarnation as a library. The church moved out around 2009 or so after which it sat abandoned for roughly a decade.
SILVER PARK ARTS
In 2019, the building found a new tenant. That July, it re-opened as an arts and events space calledSilver Park Arts (SPA). SPA hosted variety shows, magicians, musicians, poets, puppeteers, and more. SPA's residency, though, proved short-lived. It closed in March 2020 with the implementation of the COVID-19lockdown. It never re-opened and the old library, again, years would pass in which the building would sit empty.
A security fence was sloppily installed in front of the building, taking out a bush in the process. The rear of the building remained open, though, to anyone willing to brave its tiny parking lot. It was purchased in June 2024. In 2025, Ruben Zagrabyan – General Overseer | Spiritual Director of Glendale’s Word of Life Church applied to build two three-story accessory dwelling units on the lot. As of March, a leasing agent announced that the owner was still looking for someone to rent the building.
Fifty years after the library closed, Silver Lake finally got a library again -- but with it temporarily closed, we must look elsewhere for books. Although (when the library is open) Friends of the Silver Lake Library regularly host book sales and maintains a curated bookstore within the library -- but Silver Lake still has no full service, freestanding bookstores. If the popularity of the Silver Lake Reading Club (founded in 2024 by Helen Bui)... or book-markets like Acid-Free at Marta are any indication, though, literary culture is alive and well in Silver Lake. Maybe the old building could return to its literary roots -- becoming as a bookstore, reading room, or literary cafe, What do you think?
UPDATE: A reader of “Ask Silver Lake,” Ruta Vaisnys, wrote to the Outreach Committee:
Hello,
Very interesting post about Silver Lake's libraries. I'm a lifelong Silver Laker, and can't get enough about our history.
Was the Hyperion Station Library considered as being in Los Feliz (2619 Hyperion)?
Also, I'm wondering if the library was moved across the street? There is a little house there that was used by Hyperion Public as a storage space. The windows don't seem to match up, but they might have been changed at some point.
Thank you!
None of us had heard of this library. Its address, at 2619 Hyperion Avenue, is today technically (at least, according to city agencies) located within Los Feliz. I reckon, though, that most Silver Lakers regard this stretch of Hyperion (home to Speranza and other businesses) as part of Silver Lake. Tomato Pie, after all, refers to their location there as “Silver Lake” (not Franklin Hills) – and Baller Hardware has a sign imploring customers to "keep the silver in Silver Lake" (not Los Feliz). An article about the library from 1931 refers to the neighborhood as East Hollywood. Borders and neighborhood designations were less strict, historically, than they are today. Maybe an “Ask Silver Lake” about Silver Lake’s changing borders is in the cards. Whatever the case may be, Silver Lakers of the day surely would’ve thought nothing of crossing the street to patronize this tiny library.
The Hyperion Station Library opened in December 1927, operating initially out of a room owned by Harry E. Parker, a realtor who lived at 2631 Hyperion. Its collection originally numbered 312 books. It was a passion project of a former teacher, Amanda Nicholson, who also sat on the Board of Directors of the East Hollywood Improvement Association. She and Mary E. Cook oversaw the library’s operation until 1928, when it moved into a small building next door, also owned by Parker. The Los Angeles Evening News reported, in September 1931, that – nourished by the local PTA, teachers from Ivanhoe Elementary, and the Los Feliz Women’s Club (of which Parker’s wife was a member) – it had grown so popular with students of John Marshall High School, employees of the then-nearby Walt Disney Studios, and the growing “reading public.” Due to its popularity, locals petitioned the Los Angeles Library Board to construct a new building for “Hyperion Station No. 18.” On 10 September, the board considered their request.
After that, I couldn’t find anything except that, according to a caption of a photo in the Digital Collection of the Los Angeles Library, it ended service in September 1952. It was, likely, demolished and in 1954, the current building (home to Griffith Park Cleaners & Alterations) was constructed. As for the small building across the street – it appears to have been built around the same time but was in use, by the 1940s, as an antique shop.