Gentle reader,
Were you hoping to snag one last precious hour on a barstool in the Silver Platter, the oldest gay bar in the historically queer Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, before the city signs off on demolition permits for a new apartment tower?
It might be too late.
When we arrived on Saturday afternoon, we found the joint locked up tight, with a very large and serious sign posted by the ABC: liquor sales suspended until July 17.
This was the only official sign visible anywhere on the building. Since LA Taco’s Lexis-Olivier Ray documented the demolition notification tossed in the gutter in his video published on 5/16/2024, this legally required signage has not been present.
The community that drinks, shoots pool and worships at 2700 West 7th Street and doesn’t subscribe to our newsletter, follow LA Taco or QVoice News or work in the Los Angeles City Planning or Building and Safety Departments or in the office of councilmember Eunisses Hernandez has no idea that the bulldozers are coming.
That’s illegal here, just as it was illegal in Brentwood when not a single soul visiting Marilyn Monroe’s house over a month-long pre-demolition permit notification period saw such a sign posted on the wall of her former home. The law is the same when it applies to an $8 Million mansion or a dive bar in the poor part of town.
The negative impact of City of Los Angeles non-compliance with its own notification and permitting policies is the theme of a recent presentation by Mike Callahan to the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council. He’s got great ideas and the city ought to pay attention.
We made a special trip to the Silver Platter after a private walking tour wrapped up on Saturday, June 22, because on June 21 we’d received a troubling email from the city.
Although we exchanged messages about the Silver Platter with Ken Bernstein, Principal City Planner in the Office of Historic Resources, when the potential demolition came to our attention in mid-May, he didn’t respond to follow up emails sent on May 30 or June 15.
This was unusual. So on June 20, Richard made General Public Comment to the Cultural Heritage Commission, asking about the Silver Platter and calling out the improprieties in the new project’s permit process. Commission President Barry Milofsky said that staff would respond.
And sure enough, on June 21, we received an email. It wasn’t from Ken Bernstein or any of the other familiar Office of Historic Resources staff, but from an anonymous “Planning Media” account. This is what they wrote:
Thank you for your e-mail inquiry. Please note that the City Planning media relations team is responding to this request, on behalf of the Office of Historic Resources, consistent with the Department’s media protocol.
In response to your e-mail correspondence dated May 15, 2024, the demolition permit for 2700 W. 7th Street was correctly issued, consistent with Planning entitlements for the TOC housing development project that were approved on March 17, 2022 (see DCP Planning Case No. DIR-2020-5151-TOC-HCA and ENV-2020-5152-CE). In 2021, a historic resources assessment (HRA) was prepared and incorporated as part of the City’s review of the proposed TOC project. The HRA concluded that the building was not individually eligible for listing in either the National Register, the California Register, or for designation as a City HCM. (See attached HRA at pp. 1 and 36-37.) No administrative appeals were filed at that time; therefore, the time to challenge the City’s historic determination has passed.
The 44 page HRA was a real eye-opener, for a couple of reasons.
First, because it was dated 9/21/2021, but was not included in the City Planning portal where project documents are posted, nor was it provided to us until five weeks after we brought the matter to OHR, and after we escalated the lack of city staff communication to the Cultural Heritage Commissioners.
And second, because the HRA—written by the consultants who preservationists refer to among themselves as Sapphos “Kiss of Death” Environmental—only addresses the potential significance of 2700 W. 7th Street and the Silver Platter for its 1920s streetcar association, which is minimal, and not for its importance as one of the oldest gay bars in Los Angeles or indeed in the country, serving a mixed clientele of native born and immigrant patrons, located in the neighborhood where the American gay civil rights movement took form at Morris Kight’s recently landmarked home.
You can control-F search in the Sapphos report and find no mention of gay rights or culture or the award-winning 2012 documentary about the bar called Wildness, whose editor Claire Didier spoke movingly about the film on our Westlake walking tour a few weeks ago—just a lot of irrelevant streetcar history used to determine that this special place is not significant enough to merit public notification before City Planning rubber stamped the project that would destroy it.
And according to what the anonymous “Planning Media” account says, this was all done perfectly legally, through the proper processes.
No mention of the property owner having falsely claimed that the site was not on Survey LA and not older than 45 years, both facts that should have triggered a more substantive review and opportunities for the community to have a say.
And of course by applying to build a new project while City Hall was locked down in 2020, and only seeking demolition permits in 2024, another chance for the public to object was lost.
We think it’s wrong that the city quietly signs death certificates for places that Angelenos love, but it happens all the time. We need policy reform, to bring more transparency to the permitting process, to flag potentially historic places that are at risk, and to bring the deeply invested preservation community into the dialog before it’s too late. Mike Callahan has been developing proposals for this as well.
Just this week, Angelenos cried over the unannounced closure of the Snow White Café in the Christie Realty Building on Hollywood Boulevard, and grim sidewalk photos showing the gutted space, sans charming murals and cutouts of Walt Disney’s Snow White characters.
How did this happen? Who is responsible? And where is the artwork now?
As far as we have been able to determine, it went down like this:
Operator Karine Inc. Dba Snow White Cafe decided to shut their business without making a public announcement. An LADBS permit application appeared on the city’s online portal in April 2024, for “Change of use from Restaurant to Candy Store. Interior tenant improvement in existing shell building.”
Because this was not a demolition permit, nor did it mention the Snow White character murals, and because the Snow White Café was apparently still open, it went unnoticed.
On May 1, city Preservation Architect Lambert Giessinger signed off on the historic sections of the permit. He did not flag the loss of the murals, because according to the city, they are not historic or protected.
Surprised? We were. But an email to Office of Historic Resources asking if the Snow White murals were safe resulted in this depressing response from that same anonymous account:
The murals were not identified as historic elements in the Hollywood Boulevard Commercial and Entertainment National Register historic district. The current project representative indicated that the murals were the property of the previous tenant and they took them when they left the tenant space. The murals were painted onto a backing that was removed from the wall.
And that’s it. The Snow White Café, believed to have been in operation since 1941, and sporting adorable vintage murals of Walt Disney’s Snow White characters for as long as anyone can remember, has been scraped out like a melon.
And that Hollywood Boulevard Commercial and Entertainment National Register historic district survey? It is a scant 35 page document, filed in 1985! The city is deferring to a 39 year old report to determine what merits historic protection. Anything missed by the preparers of that document that is not already a landmark is just as vulnerable as the Snow White Café to being lost through the stroke of a bureaucrat’s mechanical pencil.
You don’t have to like it, but you ought to know it.
We’re going to miss the Snow White, even though the big screen TVs, beer signs and karaoke machine made it the kind of place we liked more as an idea than a destination. Still, it would have been nice for Angelenos to have the opportunity to know the murals were not protected and the business was changing hands. Somebody might have stepped up to lease the storefront and buy the murals from the former operator. Instead we’re all left wondering if they’ll turn up at an auction house, or never be seen again.
And just as we were putting this newsletter to bed, we got a call from neon historian Dydia DeLyser, who was driving by the legendary Spanish Kitchen at 7373 Beverly Boulevard and looked up, as she had for decades, to admire the rare, surviving 1920s blade sign on the corner. It was gone! And crumbled up, along with the wall sign, in the parking lot! There are no permits, of course, just an open code enforcement case from last November for “vacant lot with trash and debris.”
Maybe if the city did anything to hold property owners accountable when complaints are made, 100 year old signs wouldn’t get added to the junk pile.
As for the Silver Platter, it must be a financial strain for the owners and bartenders to be banned from opening up their cool spot during the hottest time of the year, and a loss to the locals who enjoy hanging out there. Demolition permitting is moving through the city’s process, although City Planning has been on notice since mid-May that the sign isn’t up. They might just grant a demolition permit anyway, even though they shouldn’t.
But for now, the Silver Platter is still here. And thoughts have wings.
We’re encouraged that our preservation pal
, who was so deeply involved in efforts to preserve gay rights pioneer Morris Kight’s home nearby, intends to celebrate the welcoming spirit of the Silver Platter and his faith that this place might yet be saved by holding an on-site prayer vigil at a date to be announced. We’ll be there! If you would like to know when it’s scheduled, please email him at info@stvibiana.org.Yours for Los Angeles,
Kim & Richard
Esotouric
Our work—leading tours and historic preservation and cultural landmark advocacy—is about building a bridge between Los Angeles' past and its future, and not allowing the corrupt, greedy, inept and misguided players who hold present power to destroy the city's soul and body. If you’d like to support our efforts to be the voice of places worth preserving, we have a tip jar and a subscriber edition of this newsletter, vintage Los Angeles webinars available to stream, in-person tours and a souvenir shop you can browse in. We’ve also got recommended reading bookshelves on Amazon and the Bookshop indie bookstore site. You can share this post to win subscriber perks. And did you know we offer private versions of our walking and bus tours for groups big or small? Or just share this link with other people who care.
UPCOMING BUS & WALKING TOURS
• Film Noir / Real Noir (Sat. 6/29) • The Real Black Dahlia (Sat. 7/6) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue (Sat. 7/13) • Miracle Mile Marvels and Madness (Sun. 7/21) • Know Your Downtown L.A.: Tunnels To Towers To The Dutch Chocolate Shop (Sat. 7/27 - sorry, sold out) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 (Sun. 8/4) • West Adams Sugar Hill and Angelus Rosedale Cemetery (Sat. 8/10) • Broadway: Downtown Los Angeles’ Beautiful, Magical Mess (Sun. 8/25) • Raymond Chandler’s Noir Downtown Los Angeles (Sat. 8/31)
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