Place
Silver Platter
This Westlake bar has been a safe haven for Latinx and LGBTQ+ community members for over 60 years.
Active
An approved development project will displace this cherished legacy business. The community is rallying together to help the Silver Platter find a new home and save the historic neon sign.
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Silver Platter facade and neon sign | Eric Lynxwiler
Overview
The warm neon glow of the Silver Platter tells you you’ve arrived somewhere special.
For decades, this unassuming bar in the Westlake neighborhood has welcomed for Latinx, LGBTQ+, and working class Angelenos to dance, drink, and connect. Starting in the 1990s through today, the bar has been a special and rare place for trans Latinas be themselves.
In 2020, the property owner submitted plans to build a new mixed use building on the corner of 7th Street and Rampart Ave. However, the owners of the bar and the public only learned about the project in 2024 when a demolition sign was posted on the building.
The Conservancy is proud to collaborate with the Silver Platter owners, Council District 1, and the Museum of Neon Art to salvage historic elements such as historic neon sign and bar, and support the business in continuing its legacy at a new site.
About This Place
About This Place
The one story brick building was built in 1922 along the streetcar line and was home to various small businesses over the years. The Silver Platter sign dates back to 1928 and is an extremely rare art deco neon sign. The building was briefly home to the Silver Platter Grille in 1931 and then again in the 1950s. By the 1960s, it was operating as a bar.
In the 1970s, MacArthur Park had an active LGBTQ+ community and was becoming home to large numbers of immigrants from Mexico and Central America. One of them was Rogelio Ramirez, who began the current iteration of the Silver Platter Bar as a gay bar for Latinos in “Tejano boots and leather jackets” (Gonzalo Ramirez, Wildness, 2012). After Rogelio’s death from AIDS, his brother Gonzalo stepped in. Soon, it was a hub for trans Latinas.
The 2012 film Wildness by Wu Tsang offers a unique glimpse into lives of the people who form the legacy and present of the Silver Platter.
Our Position
The Silver Platter is undoubtedly a historic place as one of L.A.’s few remaining Latinx and LGBTQ+ bars, and one of the only that has played such a vital role in the trans Latina community. We believe the Historic Resource Assessment prepared for the development application that claimed the site non-historic was seriously flawed. It evaluated only the architectural merit of the building itself, but not the decades of LGBTQ+ context – much of it readily available online.
While State Bill 330 prevents historic designations from being submitted after the approval of a housing project, we are committed to helping tell the story of this place as part of our LGBTQ+ and legacy business initiatives.
How You Can Help
Follow the owners’ efforts to find a new location and consider supporting their fundraiser at their GoFundMe.
