The Watts Towers

by Leon Whiteson

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0889623937
• ISBN13: 9780889623934
• Release Date: January 1990
• Publisher: Mosaic Press (NY)
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The Dream of NUESTRO PUEBLO

In the book's foreword, Tom Bradley, then mayor of Los Angeles in March 1987, calls the Watts towers "a symbol of Rodia's talent and tenacity." An Italian immigrant, Sabato (Sam) Rodia, came to central California in 1926 with a vision which culminated in a "miniature walled city" -- folk art which grew in what was then a rural community, crisscrossed by railroad tracks, on the fringe of Los Angeles. The author Whiteson describes it as a "sleepy urban village edged with onion fields and swamplands." There Rodia built his dream: towers which reached 99.5 feet high at the peak, with spires, gazebos and fountains, embellished with green Seven Up and blue Milk of Magnesia bottles, and endless bits of crockery -- all with no financial assistance from anyone. Until 1987 he worked with steel rods & concrete, giving this gift of identity to the community. In 1954 Rodia deeded the property to a neighbor and left, never to return. From the helpful TIME LINE we learn that the city engineers conducted structural tests in 1959 and the towers were allowed to stand. The Watts riots followed in August of 1965; in 1975 the long-neglected masterpiece was donated to the city. In 1985 a Conservation Conference was held to draw up an extensive repair program which is still being implemented. The story is fascinating; the reality even more so.