Watts Towers
Nuestro Pueblo, commonly called the
Watts Towers, in the
Watts district of
Los Angeles, California, is a collection of 17 interconnected structures, two of which reach heights of over 99 feet (30 m). The Towers were built by Italian immigrant construction worker
Sabato ("Sam" or "Simon") Rodia in his spare time over a period of 33 years, commencing construction in 1921 and completed them in 1954.
| "I had in mind to do something big and I did it." |
| — Simon Rodia |
|
Watts Towers, 1765 East 107th St., Los Angeles |
The sculptures' armatures are constructed from
steel pipes and rods, wrapped with wire mesh, coated with
mortar. The main supports are embedded with pieces of
porcelain, tile, and glass. They are decorated with
found objects: bed frames, bottles, ceramic tiles, scrap metal and sea shells. Rodia called the towers
Nuestro Pueblo, meaning "our town." Rodia built them with no special equipment or (so far as is known) predetermined design, working alone with hand tools and window-washer's equipment. Neighborhood children brought pieces of broken glass and pottery to Rodia in hopes they would be added to the project, but the majority of Rodia's material consisted of damaged pieces from the Malibu Pottery, where he worked for many years. Green glass includes recognizable soft drink bottles, some still bearing the logos of
7 Up,
Squirt,
Bubble-Up, and
Canada Dry; blue glass appears to be from
milk of magnesia bottles.
Rodia bent up much of the
Towers' framework from scrap
rebar, using nearby railroad tracks as a sort of makeshift vise.
Other items came from alongside the
Pacific Electric Railway right of way between Watts and
Wilmington. Rodia often walked the right of way all the way to Wilmington in search of material, a distance of nearly 20 miles (32 km).
Rodia reportedly did not get along with his neighbors, some of whom allowed their children to vandalize his work. Rumors that the towers were antennae for communicating with enemy Japanese forces, or contained buried treasure, caused suspicion and further vandalism.
In 1955, Rodia gave the property away and left, reportedly tired of the abuse he had received. He retired to
Martinez, California, and never came back. He died a decade later.
|
close-up of the mosaic decoration |
The property changed hands, Rodia's shack inside the enclosure was burned down, and the
City of Los Angeles condemned the structure and ordered it razed. An actor,
Nicholas King, and a film editor,
William Cartwright, visited the site in 1959, saw the neglect and decided to buy the property for $3,000 in order to preserve it. When the city found out about the transfer, it decided to perform the demolition before the transfer went through. The towers had already become famous and there was opposition from around the world. King, Cartwright, and a curator of the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, along with area architects, artists, and community activists formed the
Committee for Simon Rodia's Towers in Watts. The Committee negotiated with the city to allow for an engineering test to establish the safety of the structures.
For the test, steel cable was attached to each tower and a crane was used to exert lateral force. The crane was unable to topple or even shift the towers, and the test was concluded when the crane experienced mechanical failure.
The committee preserved the towers independently until 1975, when it deeded the site to the City of Los Angeles, which deeded it to the
State of California in 1978. It is now designated the
Simon Rodia State Historical Park. It is operated by the City of Los Angeles
Cultural Affairs Department. The towers are one of nine folk art sites listed in the
National Register of Historic Places, and one of only four
National Historic Landmarks in Los Angeles.
The steel, concrete and glass
folk art structures were undamaged during the
Watts riots in 1965. However, the towers did suffer minor damage in the
Northridge Earthquake in 1994. They were repaired and were reopened to the public in 2001.
The
Watts Towers Arts Center is a community arts center that was opened in 1970.
The Watts Towers, and their creator
Simon Rodia's friendship with a 10-year-old boy, are a major focus of "
Daniel and The Towers", a
1987 Made-for-TV movie.
The Watts Towers play a significant role in the
1991 crime-thriller
film Ricochet.
A recreation of the Watts Towers is depicted in the
Rockstar Games video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, as a recognizable landmark in the fictional city of "Los Santos", which is modeled on the City of
Los Angeles.
Charles Mingus' autobiography,
Beneath the Underdog makes reference to the towers as a part of Mingus' upbringing.
Don DeLillo's novel,
Underworld refers to the towers.
*
Antoni Gaudà a
Catalan architect with a similar style, particularly
La Sagrada Familia in
Barcelona.
*
Qutub Minar, including a similarly-shaped ancient Indian tower.
*
KCET Life & Times. History of the Towers*
Official State Park Website*
Spherical panoramas of Rodia's work
