Here is a Silver Lake establishment with a correct sense of direction. It is located at 3224 Sunset Blvd. between Descanso & Micheltorena Avenues. It’s in the heart of Silver Lake AND recognizes full well that this is indeed the WESTSIDE. A long time resident I found in the vicinity informed me that this place has been WESTSIDE MOTORS for at least the 24 years that he has lived here. I can’t argue with that.
La Lucha Sigue! I know there’s a place in East Los called East Side Motors, I’m gonna have to remember to take a pic of it.
Chicanos who grew up in Echo Park, Angelino Heights etc. did call their neighborhood the “Westside” to distinguish themselves from Eastside Chicanos who they believed were tougher and cooler. Source: my mother, Belmont High graduate class of ’65 (I think)
Also, let’s not forget that in hip-hop parlance, “Westside” refers to the entire west coast of the United States. So even the Eastside would be part of the “Westside.” And “Westside Rentals” also covers properties in places like…Boyle Heights, El Sereno and the like.
y por que la lucha entre el east y el west?
rolo,
Existe esta lucha porque muchos han querido exproriar el nombre “Eastside” para su gusto, sin importarle la historia que viene con el nombre. Cuando uno habla del hip-hop, es por diferencias cultura y orgullo que tienen para su punto de origen.
but why do you guys get so offended and offensive when people from silver lake call silver lake the east side? if anything you should be happy that other places want to be like the real east LA. no?
because nearly all the people who call silverlake the “eastside” don’t include the real eastside of bh and east la into their “eastside”. when people on the real eastside say that lincoln heights in the northeast, or montebello in the suburbs are also the eastside, they mean that it has a connection to boyle heights and east la.
I understand what you are saying, i just dont get why people “spend” their time “luchando” for this. I live in hawthorne which is consider the s. bay, if i hear people from inglewood calling inglewood the s. bay, i’ll probably laugh but thats about it. i dont think that i would dedicate posts to this fight over whats what. by the way, hawthorne is no better than inglewood. Ohh, and dont get me wrong, i love the east side way better than silverlake and the hipsters.
Inglewood is the South Bay. It was considered the South Bay up until black people and now Latinos lived there.
The reason people are offended is because the Eastside was called the Eastside, because that was code back in the day for Latino and South Central was called South Central, because that was code for black. It is offensive because now that people think it’s cool they want to take the name, but yet take the credit away and acknowledgment of the people who made the Eastside and awesome place.
It’s also disrespectful for another reason. Eastside means to people who are from the coast and the West LA area, “gritty” and “real” and “urban,” it’s like this cartoonish like stereotype it’s this I’m going to play slumming artist, but you know the people who live there don’t live in a slum. They live in a neighborhood. A neighborhood that is just as great and community oriented as the neighborhoods on the westside.
When I did my brief stint on the Eastside (I will be back this summer) in Boyle Heights it was a super sweet neighborhood, but the building I lived and worked in was filled with people from the westside and from out of state. The building was industrial and the upper middle class slummers would paint graffiti and do drugs and go out of their way to make it look shitty for “effect,” but they wouldn’t do their laundry their.
“I can’t walk out there, it’s scary,” new resident of the Eastside.
The ladies who I stood on the bus with, the Montebello 40 started asking me questions, they said they were so happy someone had bought the building, but when way they going to fix it and make it nice. It was a really an eye opening conversation of the disrespect some outsiders have for places they don’t understand.
And I think it’s that kind of disrespect that makes this Eastside/ Westside thing irritating to the people who have been on the Eastside for generations.
An interesting story, because as I am not a LA native I didn’t realized that Compton was the Westside. I said something about it’s location and an older African-American woman was like, “Compton is the Westside, what are you talking about.”
Oops, so we all make mistakes, but just realize that hey while it might not matter to you, it may matter alot to someone else and if you don’t care and the other person does well why not make an effort.
Like Browne says, to some of us it does matter and it’s more than just a word, it’s a fight to preserve a sense of place rather than allow the Eastside to once again be dismissed as irrelevant. And even though some are trying to make it seem that Silver Lake and Echo Park are just the same as Boyle Heights and East LA, the reality is that they are worlds apart. Basically, what it boils down to, is that those with history and long traditions on the Eastside of Los Angeles have no say on the rest of the city, have no presence, and might as well be invisible. The annexation of the term to define our geography is yet another way to dismiss this side of town. I certainly don’t care where the Westside begins or ends, but that gets coverage in blogs, newspapers, and magazines. Maybe it’s not a big deal to some people and I could just throw up my hands and say “oh well” but when you grow up in Los Angeles, constantly aware that nobody cares about you, your people, or where the fuck you live, these small battles against the delegitimization of our neighborhoods are worth the extra effort. Maybe I’ll get a San Diegan calling me an “essentialist” but that’s okay. They’ll all get their comeuppance.
Rolo,
My link was supposed to lead here. While I think it’s fine for smaller barrios to call themselves something within the larger neighborhood, it is not acceptable to disregard a community’s history by taking their name and calling another neighborhood by the expropriated name.
Perfect example: “A Westside Motors on the Eastside. LA Eastside” when the blog post is clearly about Silver Lake, which is NOT in the Eastside.
That being said, note that The Far East is very near. Just less than 2 miles east, at 1289 Sunset Blvd. Not too far from the Eastside Market WEST of the 110 freeway.
The Eastside Market moved from it’s original location on the east side to their current location, though they never mention where exactly it was. But they kept the name. I suspect it was somewhere in LH, as that had a large Italian community.
http://books.google.com/books?id=MwQZUOiSqPcC&pg=PA36&dq=“eastside+market”#PPA35,
ok pues, ya me callo. thanks for clarifying this west side east side thing. now, off to la favorita to get some of those delicious conchitas. 4 for a $1, cant beat that with this economy =)
¡La Favorita es mi panaderia favorita! jajajaja those conchitas do come in handy.
La Favorita on blanchard/brannick?
The Eastside also has an opinon on this topic. Let your voices be heard!
http://projects.latimes.com/mapping-la/debates/westside/