About

At the Million Dollar Theater. Photo by Kim Cooper of Esotouric.

Me

Etan @ James Daniel Derby House

Hi! I’m Etan Rosenbloom. I’m a lifelong Angeleno, raised in Altadena with time spent in Silver Lake, East Hollywood (I lived in this monstrosity as it was being painted magenta), Echo Park, Highland Park and now Valley Village. By day I work for an organization that gets songwriters and composers paid when their music is played. I love music and beer, loathe hypocrisy and Oxford commas, and have a passion for exploring the history of the city I love. 

The Etan Does LA project

Etan Does LA documents a project that I embarked on in late September 2021: visiting all of the Los Angeles County landmarks listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). There are ~600 of them, and counting. At every site, I take photos/videos and post them along with a historical essay. Wherever possible, I get a snap with the official NRHP plaque, though not every site has one. 

+See an interactive Google Map of all the NRHP sites in LA County (only accessible on mobile devices)

Why I started doing this

I spent a lot of time in my 20s and 30s writing about music as a freelance journalist. When my daughter was born, I stopped my freelance work to focus on being a dad – totally worth it, but it left a creative void in my life. Etan Does LA has filled that void. And while I didn’t fully appreciate it when I started, this project has also kept me connected with my city during the pandemic, at a time when connections are so hard to come by.

This is a really cool source of adventures with my daughter, too. In fact she came up with an official jingle for the NRHP:

Some questions, answered

What’s the National Register of Historic Places?

The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is a federal list of American buildings, sites, structures, districts and objects that are deemed historically significant and worthy of preservation. It was created by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, and is currently overseen by the National Park Service. While the types of landmarks on the NRHP are extremely diverse, they all meet at least one of four broad criteria.

According to the National Park Service, landmarks that are eligible for the NRHP…

  1. are associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history; or
  2. are associated with the lives of persons significant in our past; or
  3. embody the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, or that represent the work of a master, or that possess high artistic values, or that represent a significant and distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction; or
  4. have yielded, or may be likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history

In most cases, something listed on the NRHP will look mostly like it used to, and be more than 50 years old. Though the 50-year rule isn’t ironclad.

+ Read more about the NRHP’s criteria and nomination process. 

+ Want to see if there are any NRHP sites near you? Search the database.

Why do you care about LA history? 

While I make no claims to being a historian, I’m fascinated by the social, aesthetic, political, technological, religious, environmental and economic forces that have led to the Los Angeles we live in. Why did people build that building, there and then, in that particular style? What does a structure tell us about the people that created it, funded it and used it? What do we consider important enough to preserve, and how does a city evolve and adapt without losing what makes it unique? 

Photo/copyright policy

All photos and videos are taken by me, unless otherwise stated. I have a profound respect for the copyrighted work of all creators, and will only directly embed the work of others if one of the following conditions is met:

  1. It is in the public domain
  2. I have received consent from the copyright owner or authorized distributor
  3. It is available for editorial use via a stated or implied license

If you’d like to use any of my original photos contained on Etan Does LA, drop me a line.