Be inspired at Watts Towers

Watts Towers are a quick 15-20 minute ride from Downtown Los Angeles on the Metro. Since I love weird, interesting things, plus the towers are in my backyard, I had to take a trip to check them out! When getting off the train, I half expected to see the towers spiraling off in the distance. After walking down the street, they appeared, three minarets sparkling in the sun! Watts Towers or as Simon Rodia called his masterpiece, Nuestro Pueblo, are a collection of 17 interconnected sculptural structures created out of steel covered with mortar and embellished by the decorative finishings of mosaic tiles, glass, clay, shells and rock. Simon Rodia wired rebars together then wrapped this joint with wire mesh and hand packed it with mortar and his mosaic surface. He built them with no special equipment or predetermined design, working alone with hand tools. Neighborhood children brought pieces of broken pottery to Rodia, and he also used damaged pieces from the Malibu Pottery and CALCO (California Clay Products Company). Green glass includes recognizable soft drink bottles from the 1930s through 1950s, some still bearing the former logos of 7 Up, Squirt, Bubble Up, and Canada Dry; blue glass appears to be from milk of magnesia bottles. Surrounding the towers are walls studded with blue glass in wave formations and more than 25,000 seashells. The three tallest towers are like masts waiting to sail back to the home Rodia left age 15, where every year they hold a Festa dei Gigli. The Gigli – huge lilies made of papier maché and wood that are paraded around the town for the feast of St Paulinus – look a lot like Rodia’s towers. Other structures include a a gazebo with a circular bench, three bird baths, an outdoor oven and the font where Rodia performed baptisms and weddings, though he had no religious status or affiliation. Simon even constructed his “Ship of Marco Polo” as tribute to the Italian explorer, fully decorated like the rest of the structures. Simon Rodia, while being a quiet man, explained his masterpiece by saying, “I had in mind to do something big and I did it.” And something big was created. To stand inside one of Rodia’s towers and look up through the spider web of steel and concrete made me dizzy, like standing in a dream encrusted with a sparkling mosaic. 

Here are a few tips when visiting Watts Towers:

1. Public guided tours of the Watts Towers are conducted Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Sunday from 12:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. There are no tours Monday through Wednesday, national holidays or rainy days. Tours are $7 for adults and free for children under 12.
2. You can take the Metro Green line to 103rd Street Station from downtown, or drive. While there is no  designated parking for the towers (none that I could see), there is plenty of street parking. If you decide on driving, the address to the towers is Watts Towers Arts Center Campus, 1727 East 107th Street, Los Angeles, California 90002