| watts towers |
04.04.01 |
 In the heart of the Watts community, down South Central and right next to Compton stands a structure that represent the will of the human imagination. Here stands the Watts Towers of Simon Rodia. Simon Rodia, baptized Sabato and also know as Sam or Don Simon, was a small man, an Italian immigrant that worked in the coal mines of Pennsylvania and later as a construction worker in the west coast. He then found his way to Watts where he purchased a wedge shaped plot of land in the early 1920's. In this piece of land he labored for over 30 years to build these spectacular towers. Amazingly Simon worked alone and without the aid of modern machinery, blue prints, or even scaffolding. He only used his imagination and humble tile-setters tools. The simple tools he also used to sign his masterpiece, as imprints of the tools are found on the walls. The walls of the building and the towers themselves are beautifully decorated with a mosaic of broken dishes, tiles, glass, mirrors, old soda bottles, sea shells, rocks, and even a bowling ball. Just about everything that some one might throw away as useless. The tallest spire reaches almost 100 feet. He named part of his structure 'The Ship of Marco Polo', after the great Italian explorer. The whole structure almost looks like a sailing ship. With a little imagination the spires look like masts and it all begins to sail under the blue sky. To me it looks like a medieval space ship. Simon Rodia, after working long and hard on the towers, gave the property to a neighbor so that he could move to Martinez, Ca, to live closer to his daughter.  A businessman then bought the property and wanted to convert it to a Mexican restaurant. At one point in time near sighted city officials wanted to demolish this structure of imagination. The towers are now considered one of the greatest folk-art structures in the world and are now protected as a National Historic Landmark.
'I had in mind to do something big and I did'
-- Simon Rodia
Resource:
epilef gallery
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