Although unique to Los Angeles, Watts Towers are not on every tourist’s must-see list. If fact, though most Angelenos have heard of them, most have not visited. They are out of the way, in Watts, a small community in South Los Angeles. Though Watts has produced a wide variety of artists, musicians, and community leaders, but it’s famous mostly for the towers and the protests and riots of 1968.
If you ask about Watts Towers on the Internet, you’ll find some folks recommending that you go and others telling you will definitely get robbed if you go to/park in/drive through that neighborhood. If you live in LA, you know this rhetoric. Many of us fail to venture out of our safe zones and lack the imagination to think that we should.
But the Watts Towers are an incredible testimony to what a person can accomplish if he sets his mind to it. These eight towers, the highest of which reaches 97 feet, just under the 100 foot city limit, represent the life’s work of Sabato Rodia, who used to say that he wanted “to do something big.”
What are the Watts Towers exactly?
Rodia, who could neither read nor write nor do math, immigrated to the US from Italy at age 12. He began work on the towers in 1921, finding rebar, bending it by hand (often levering it on nearby railroad tracks to curve it), covering it with cement, and adding found pieces of decor (7-Up bottles, sea shells, broken pottery). Using hidden ladders he built within the towers, Rodia supported himself with a belt, and climbed as he built. He bragged that he never had any help: he built the towers single handedly.
Our Watts Towers tour guide, Lucy, had us look at the Towers from a variety of perspectives and shared her theory that the towers, in fact, formed a ship, pointed back to Italy, where Rodia had left behind his home and parents. She felt that Rodia finished the towers and then just walked away (though, according to records, he talked about them for the rest of his hike), because he had accomplished his mission. He had built his ship home with his two hands.
Is the Watts Tower Tour Worth it?
You can view the towers from outside the fence. If you come on a day when tours are not being held, you cannot get inside. You can still see the towers and helpful signs on the fence tell you about Sabato Rodia and the Watts Towers. But, being inside “the ship” feels extraordinary. It’s incredible to be inside, to see the imprints Rodia made in the cement with whatever he had at hand (tools, water spigots, old wrought iron gates), and view up-close the way he placed each bit of glass and pottery. You find yourself surrounded by both incredible symmetry and beautiful chaos. To be in the ship is to be, for a moment, inside the mind of a true dreamer. It’s well worth the $7 and the 30 minutes to get inside and hear the details.
When I arrived, one of the Tower staff asked if I had been before and I said that I had been, but it was years ago and I didn’t remember if I had been inside. Another staff member said, “Then you haven’t. If you’d been inside, you’d remember.” He was right. Stepping inside Rodia’s structure feels like stepping from the harsh reality of real life into a Disneyland space, in a matter of steps.
Be Inspired by Rodia and his Quirky Dream
As we left the tour, Lucy imparted us with some wisdom, “Be like Rodia, if you want to do something, don’t worry about if you can do it, if you will succeed or not, just do it.”
Near the entrance to the gallery there is a statue of Rodia, life-sized. He was not even 5’ tall. He was a tiny man, who, when he wanted to write in the cement, had to ask his neighbors how to write out “our community.” But he accomplished a structure that has not only stood the test of time, but defied the city officials who, at various points, wanted to raze them.
If you have an interest in architecture, upcycling, street art, or just the strength of human inspiration, put Watts Towers on your list! Make sure to go on a day that they are open (Wednesday – Saturday for now) and take the tour. The folks who work there are passionate about the Watts Towers and you’ll leave excited about creating something of your own.
Is it Safe to go to Watts Towers?
Ok, so what about the neighborhood? Is it really as scary as the people on the Internet say? Watts is a working class neighborhood. Like so many other neighborhoods like it, contains largely single family homes, mostly gated. Some homes and gardens are maintained meticulously: flowers, lawns, paint jobs. Others are falling in on themselves, with yards filled with old cars and way too many days of dog droppings. As you drive to the towers, you see signs of economic distress: some tents, trash in the street, lots of graffiti. But, you also see lots of normal things: people pushing strollers and puttering around the yard.
I arrived early and walked around. Most of the people I passed said good morning as I walked by (which is not always the case in Los Angeles!). While I did see a man quickly and nervously tagging a blank wall (not the only time I’ve seen graffiti happening in LA), I also saw folks walking to work and construction workers refurbishing a church next door.
Arriving before the Towers opened, I wandered around. I climbed up the bridge that crosses the train tracks to take in the neighborhood. Then, I checked out a new mural in progress (gorgeous). Moving back to the Towers, I read the plaques on the performance space next to the Watts Towers. The space is home to the annual Watts Jazz Festival and the plaques shout out famous artists, musicians, activists and professionals who came out of Watts. This is a community space. I felt perfectly safe (although I didn’t take a picture of the tagger — I didn’t want to be chased!).
Even if you don’t love the neighborhood, you can visit the towers safely
Watts Towers has a parking lot although neither the signs nor my map app took me there. Signs and GPS take you up 107th, a dead end street. From 107th you can see the towers from outside the fence and read some information about their construction. You can find the parking lot for the Towers and Gallery off Graham Avenue (between 107th and Santa Ana). A security guard parked in the lot and wandered the park while I was there. I worried neither for my car nor for myself. You can also take the train and get off at the 103rd/Watts Towers station. The station is just a couple of blocks from the towers (blocks I walked to go see the new mural).
I’ve spent enough time in working class communities to feel safe in them, and I don’t drive a flashy car or dress ostentatiously. Aside from wanting to photograph the tagger but knowing it was a bad idea, I didn’t feel any trepidation. And if stick to the parking lot, gallery, and towers, you could honestly be in any part of LA.
Don’t Miss the Watters Tower Art Gallery and Documentary
Another note: the gallery has a changing set of exhibitions, but reading about them, they seem to be well curated. While I was there, the exhibit was “Politics, Race and Cartoons: Two Decades of Drawing My Own Conclusions” by David G. Brown. The exhibit included years of his own political comics (from Obama to COVID to Trump to Black Lives Matter) as well as historical cartoons that over issues of race and civil rights. Interesting and provactive.
Your $7 tour fee also includes watching a short documentary about Sabato Rodia and the towers (a number of facts in this post come from that documentary) which is also worth your time (12 minutes, I think). It’s interesting to see and here Rodia himself talk about the towers and see how they were constructed. If you have kids who are dreamers and builders, this is a must-visit in LA.