Watts Towers Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
Built by Italian immigrant construction worker Simon Rodia in his spare time over a period of 33 years, the Watts Towers, in the Watts district of Los Angeles, California, are a collection of 17 structures, two of which reach a height of over 99 feet. The steel, concrete and glass folk-art structures were one of the few items that were undamaged during the 1965 Watts riots. They were started in 1921 and Rodia completed them in 1954.
The sculptures are constructed from steel pipes and rods, wrapped with wire mesh, coated with mortar and embedded with pieces of porcelain, tile and glass. They are decorated with bed frames, bottles, ceramic tile, scrap metal and sea shells. Rodia called them "Nuestro Pueblo," meaning "our town." Rodia built them with no special equipment or a 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. It is a safe assumption that much of the broken crockery in the towers came from pieces that the children took from their mothers' kitchens and broke themselves.
Much of the material 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 once said, "I had in mind to do something big and I did it."
Rodia donated the property to a neighbor in 1955, retiring to Martinez, California. He did not return to visit his work before his death a decade later. A local citizens' committee raised money to protect the property and to show that it was safe in the event of earthquake, thus preserving it from demolition. In a test of the towers' strength, a steel cable was attached to each tower and a crane was used to exert force. The crane failed to topple or even shift the towers. The property was donated to the State of California in 1978 and is operated by the City of Los Angeles Parks Department.
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