Watts Towers, a South L.A. icon, merit the short drive down


Fifty years ago, the Watts riots broke out in Los Angeles, warranting national media attention. The combination of the Watts riots and more contemporary events such as the Rodney King riots has given the area around USC a bit of a bad reputation.

This isn’t new or shocking information, it’s simply a fact -— many people believe our surrounding neighborhood is dangerous. Overbearing parents of potential students ask about safety measures and crime rates just as much as they ask about academics and dorms.

In my humble opinion, this media attention has contributed to a hesitancy among students to explore the neighborhoods immediately surrounding us. Students pile into their cars or onto the Metro and travel directly to Downtown, Hollywood or Westwood, without exploring South Los Angeles.

Sixty-one years ago, a man named Simon Rodia completed the Watts Towers, the Watts neighborhood’s other, more positive claim to fame. The Watts Towers are a world-renowned public art sculpture, designated as both a California Historical Landmark and a National Historic Landmark. It’s also included on the National Register of Historic Places.

This iconic historical sight is just a 15-minute drive from campus, accessible via the 110 South. Or, if you use public transportation (as you should), take the Blue Line to the convenient 103rd Street/Watts Towers Metro station.

The towers are tucked away in a residential neighborhood. Towers reaching as high as 90 feet loom over small, single-story homes. The towers are steel structures, coated with various glass materials. The resulting mosaic exudes a whimsical, do-it-yourself feel, similar to the lesser-known Salvation Mountain in Slab City.

Imperfect and impressive, the towers represent the life’s work of Rodia, an Italian immigrant and construction worker. It took Rodia more than 30 years to complete work on the towers, beginning in 1921 and ending in 1954. In 1955, however, Rodia moved out of the Watts neighborhood, leaving his towers behind. He died 10 years later and never returned to the project he worked meticulously on for three decades.

Rodia’s primary motivation for the towers was simply to do something for his neighborhood. In the 2006 documentary about Rodia, I Build the Tower, the unintentional artist says, “I build the tower people like, everybody come.”

The towers are only accessible to the public via tours on the weekends. Unfortunately, we didn’t visit on a tour day, so we could only admire them from outside the locked fence. We were still able to appreciate Rodia’s impressive artistry in all its towering glory, however.

The towers were constructed out of steel, then coated with concrete and wrapped in wire mesh. Rodia built the towers without scaffolding, machine equipment or drawing boards, instead relying on simple tools and creativity. Embedded in the concrete are various glass materials, all from “found objects.” A “found object” is exactly what it sounds like — an object Rodia found and then added to his ever-expanding art project. Pieces of porcelain, tile and glass, from objects including bottles, seashells and mirrors, decorate the tower. Hardly a reclusive artist, Rodia often used items brought to him from neighborhood children.

Rodia’s love for his neighborhood is shown in the name he originally gave the towers, “Nuestro Pueblo,” or “Our Town.”

The towers’ colorful presence has made an impact on the surrounding neighborhood. Homes that border the towers are equally colorful — some are painted with bright colors or designs, and many feature bright, blooming flowers. A few homes even feature their own mosaics.

A park space now surrounds the towers, completing Rodia’s vision of his work as a community gathering space. At just 0.11 acres, the space is California’s smallest state park.

Surrounding the towers is a circle of benches, positioned perfectly to gaze up at the towers. The land also includes the Watts Towers Arts Center, which provides art classes to children from the community and showcases work from local artists.

A hidden gem within a hidden gem, the ground surrounding the towers features an extensive timeline of the history of the Watts neighborhood. Starting with the indigenous Indians who occupied California as early as 10,000 B.C., and ending with the completion of the Imperial-Wilmington Metro Line in 1998, the timeline provides everything you could possibly know about South Los Angeles history.

The Watts Towers aren’t as obscure as most places I’ve covered. Most USC students have probably already heard of the towers, but I figured everyone needed a little extra encouragement to venture into the area surrounding our campus. The Watts Towers’ proximity to USC and prominence in Los Angeles culture make it a must-visit for students. Through this column, I’ve encouraged readers to visit random locations across the Los Angeles region. As students of Los Angeles, we also need to engage with the community directly around us, and the Watts Towers provide a perfect place to start.

The Watts Towers are open to the public for tours on Thursdays through Sundays.

Erin Rode is a freshman majoring in environmental engineering and print and digital journalism. Her column, “The Rode Less Traveled,” runs Thursdays.

1 reply
  1. Jump The Shark
    Jump The Shark says:

    “The combination of the Watts riots and more contemporary events such as the Rodney King riots has given the area around USC a bit of a bad reputation.” No, the random killing of Chinese students, gang violence in general, the Halloween 2012 shooting on campus by a non-student and the overall lawlessness surrounding the campus is responsible for ‘earned’ bad reputation. It is completely irresponsible for you to suggest public transportation to Watts (which also requires walking a few blocks to the Towers)
    when doing so unnecessarily puts lives at risk! Go by car (know where you’re going) if you must – and do so only on tour dates. SC students are not in LA to ‘engage’ the community. The communities needs are irrelevant unless your aim is social work and not an education for which enormous sums are being extracted from parents who could give a rats-ass about social engagement.

Comments are closed.