Recreation

#265: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (Exposition Park)

#265: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (Exposition Park)

August 28, 2025
Architecture
The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum has witnessed countless milestones in international sports, politics and culture. It's the only stadium to have hosted the opening and closing ceremonies at two Olympics, with a third on its way in 2028. But the stories behind the building itself – its evolving architecture, the goals of its construction, its governance, its preservation – are every bit as important to its history as what’s happened inside it.
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#250: Queen Anne Cottage & Coach Barn (Arcadia)

#250: Queen Anne Cottage & Coach Barn (Arcadia)

March 4, 2025
Architecture
While these two whimsical Victorian confections don't quite "fit in" with the organic beauty of the LA County Arboretum, they're vital to the history of the San Gabriel Valley. Built around 1885, they were once the center of a vast ranch owned by Elias "Lucky" Baldwin, a landowner whose influence is still felt today.
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#230: Mariposa Street Bridge (Burbank)

#230: Mariposa Street Bridge (Burbank)

August 18, 2024
Recreation
Since 1939, Mariposa Street Bridge has connected the equestrian neighborhoods of Burbank & Glendale with the bridle trails of Griffith Park. It’s a reminder that, even though this is a car town, cowboy culture is still alive in LA.
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#186: Rose Bowl (Pasadena)

#186: Rose Bowl (Pasadena)

December 31, 2023
Architecture
For over a century, the Rose Bowl in Pasadena has played host to some of college football's most-watched games (plus: the world's biggest flea market!). And while it's earned its place in sports lore many times over, the Rose Bowl also has a fascinating, evolving history as a work of architecture.
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#169: Tuna Club of Avalon (Catalina) 

#169: Tuna Club of Avalon (Catalina) 

August 24, 2023
Recreation
The Tuna Club of Avalon is an organization of anglers, founded in 1898 and still going strong today, that has had an outsize impact on big game fishing as a sport. And since 1916 they’ve done all their fishy business in this Catalina clubhouse.
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#158 & #159: Malaga Cove Plaza Library & Farnham Martin’s Park (Palos Verdes)

#158 & #159: Malaga Cove Plaza Library & Farnham Martin’s Park (Palos Verdes)

June 20, 2023
Architecture
The Malaga Cove Plaza Library was the first dedicated library on the Palos Verdes peninsula. Dating from 1930, it's the work of Myron Hunt, and reflects the Mediterranean revival style that Hunt and the Palos Verdes Art Jury planned for the entire peninsula. Adjoining the library since the very beginning is Farnham Martin's Park, a formally landscaped oasis designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. with a multi-tiered fountain as its focal point.
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#155: Great Hall/Long Hall (West Hollywood)

#155: Great Hall/Long Hall (West Hollywood)

June 2, 2023
City Planning
Great Hall/Long Hall in West Hollywood’s Plummer Park was built in 1938, on land that was owned by the colorful Eugenio “Captain” Plummer. The building was one of many projects in LA funded by the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression. It’s served West Hollywood's diverse communities for decades, most notably as a meeting space for the advocacy group ACT UP, which shaped the federal government’s response to the HIV/AIDS crisis in the late 1980s and early ‘90s.
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Roadtrip: Etan Does Idyllwild

Roadtrip: Etan Does Idyllwild

May 20, 2022
Architecture
For my 40th birthday, I visited the NRHP-listed landmarks in the SoCal mountain town of Idyllwild: a livable yellow UFO, a John Lautner cabin made of tree trunks and zig-zagging glass, a wooded State Park and a modernist tram station at 8,500 feet.
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#83: Glendale YMCA

#83: Glendale YMCA

March 27, 2022
Architecture
The Glendale chapter of the YMCA counted 17% of the city as members in 1931 – including a young John Wayne. Here is its stately Spanish colonial home.
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