De Ocampo grew up in the "rough" part of Silver Lake, south of Sunset, raised by poor, immigrant parents from the Philippines. The troubling duality found by the Health Atlas study means, he says, that Silver Lake and L.A. leaders "have a big responsibility to make some big changes."
In early September, a Silver Lake Neighborhood Council meeting erupted, unusually so, in angry chants and jeers after people — many younger than 35 — fiercely protested their failure to push through an advisory vote condemning the city attorney's proposed gang injunction. It got so testy that LAPD was called in.
"The audience was set off," says Herman-Wurmfeld, who dubbed the unpleasantness "a full rebellion." Well, this isn't Brooklyn. Nobody got hit. After all, as Forbes alliteratively says, it's "one of the largest creative-class communities in the country."
PHOTO BY AMANDA LOPEZ
Julianna Parr, in the back room of Akbar, shows off fuzzy appliques: "Drawing out the unrealized talents of Los Angeles' artistic community in an arena of bohemia and generosity."
PHOTO BY AMANDA LOPEZ
Lee and Barbara Ringuette moved to Silver Lake in 1988 for its eclecticism, then fought for it during the bloody crime years.
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Yet Silver Lake has rising obesity among its children and far too many liquor stores. It faces strong disagreements about policies that affect its future, such as whether the car should win over the bicycle. It is awash in controversial gentrification with its rental prices racing into the $1,997-per-bedroom vicinity, more expensive than Malibu or downtown.
The older, more affluent baby boomers seem fixated on micro-issues such as relieving Silver Lake's parking crunch, which sparks the ire of younger folks, who tend to think of the bigger picture: They want to build a more sustainable, environmentally friendly community.
"Their priorities are screwed up," says Matthew Mooney, a 30-ish musician who champions any kind of transportation that doesn't involve a car.
Perhaps bemused by this spat over the neighborhood is Silver Lake's big population of poor and working-class Latinos, many of whom are concentrated near the particulate-choked 101 freeway, with Sunset Boulevard acting as the divide between richer and poorer. Celia Garza, a nurse at Silver Lake's busy Hollywood Sunset Free Clinic on Sunset, says the clinic is overwhelmed by low-income patients. "I'm seeing people who are unemployed and have uncontrolled diabetes and uncontrolled hypertension," she says. "And because of the unemployment situation, we see a lot of depression."
Her boss, Tacy Padua, says the old days of white flight out of the area are "in reverse" in Silver Lake, but she's not so sure that's a positive: "Now we have more specialty shops — almost like shops for tourists. You have to wonder how that's going to help the community."
As Ace the Cat covertly moves around the living room of their meticulously restored, 1920s Mediterranean home, Barbara and Lee Ringuette — "children of the '50s," as Lee says — discuss the clashes that erupt these days.
"I like Charlie [Herman-Wurmfeld] a lot," says Barbara, a slender, bespectacled blonde who worked in L.A. County government for 39 years and is now a dedicated activist, "but I disagree with him a lot, too. Some people may find us not progressive. No. We're pragmatic."
Herman-Wurmfeld and his allies, who are mostly in their 20s and 30s, would have gotten along well with Silver Lake's now-dispersed old-school bohemians and left-wingers. But Barbara says they're "hard to work with" and have an "anarchistic" feel. "They put up roadblocks so nothing gets done."
Lee Ringuette, a successful TV and film sound man who also likes Herman-Wurmfeld, says Charlie has "moonbeam" ideas. "All of these recent college graduates [in Silver Lake] are frightening. They think all their ideas are perfect. ... They are intolerant of other views."
There's a generation gap in Silver Lake, and the Ringuettes just voiced it. They moved to their home near Silver Lake Boulevard south of Sunset in 1988, seeking a diverse, eclectic community. Silver Lake — with its Latino and gay populations and reputation as a home for misfits, left-wingers and creatives such as underground filmmaker Kenneth Anger, TV horror-movie hostess Elvira, architect Richard Neutra, hobo activist James Eads How and gay-rights pioneer Harry Hay — fit the bill.
Silver Lake soon underwent a cathartic change, prompted by L.A.'s bloody and violent late-1980s and early-1990s crime wave.
"We heard gunshots weekly," Lee says. "The neighborhood got together. We had neighborhood watches and marches, and then the LAPD got involved." He and Barbara helped bring in the Guardian Angels, a New York civilian crime-fighting group, to learn how to patrol their own streets. "We were taught how to roll behind cars when we were shot at," Lee recalls.
De Ocampo came of age in Silver Lake during that ugly time, living with his Filipino parents and four siblings a few blocks south of the Ringuettes' well-appointed home. He vividly recalls being 11, taking care of his cancer-ridden father in the De Campos' one-bedroom apartment, when three robbers suddenly broke in. One pointed a gun at his head as they ransacked the place, looking for cash and electronics.
"I realized, 'Wow, we're not in the greatest neighborhood,' " De Ocampo recalls.
Now manager of a charitable foundation, De Ocampo, 34, lifted himself out of poverty by earning good grades and getting a college degree. A resident of East Hollywood, next door to Silver Lake, he ran for but lost the recent L.A. City Council District 13 primary. His old South of Sunset neighborhood is safer, De Ocampo says, but as he campaigned door to door, especially near the 101 freeway, where he grew up, he noticed persistent poverty and crime — and Silver Lake kids mired in it.
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