'Hood #3: Discovering the Beauty of Watts (Seriously)

'Hood:  Watts

Today, my challenge took me to Watts, a neighborhood that was home to the famed Watts riots of 1965 and that has a reputation for having a fair amount of gang activity.  It's also where you'll find the Watts Towers, which is what I went to go see today...and which turned out to be much cooler than I'd thought they'd be.

I'd heard people mention the towers over the years, and a quick glance at the Watts Towers web site showed they offered tours every half hour Tuesday through Sunday.  I figured a Friday afternoon would be less crowded, and it's one of the benefits of being my own boss, that I can give myself the occasional afternoon off.  I also regularly celebrate casual Friday...and casual Monday, Tuesday, etc.

To get to the Watts Towers from West LA, I took the 405 South to the 105 East, exiting at Wimington (am I sounding like an episode of SNL's The Californians?).  I followed Google map directions, but I started to wonder if they were wrong because—instead of being in a business district where I'd be coming across an art museum of some sort—I was driving through a residential neighborhood, near the rail tracks.  Most of the houses were tiny, low bungalow style, so if I were in the right spot, surely I'd see towers rising above, wouldn't I?  I'll admit, as dumb as I know it is to be nervous just because I happen to be in a low-income neighborhood in broad daylight, I still wasn't wild about the idea of being lost in Watts.

I soon turned a corner, however, and there they were.  Upon seeing the towers, I realized how off my expectations had been. It was that word "tower"...I'd envisioned something massive, like the Sears Tower, or the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The Watts Towers are about the height of a telephone pole.

I'd arrived just in time for a tour, which at first was just me and my lovely tour guide, Lucy.  I was actually glad when another guy showed up so I didn't make Lucy go through her whole shpeal for one person.  (Unfortunately, he turned out to be a real mansplainer, and piped in endlessly with his own tidbits of information completely unrelated to the towers throughout the tour.)

What delighted me so much about the towers is that they were a labor of love (or possibly an obsession) of an Italian immigrant named Simon Rodia, who spent 30 years starting in 1961 building them in his backyard with found materials in his spare time.

Suddenly I felt a little guilty and downright lazy about that afternoon I'd given myself off.

The Watts Towers consist of 17 major sculptures constructed of structural steel and covered with mortar and decorated with broken glass (7-up and Ginger Ale bottles seemed to be a favorite), sea shells, pottery and tiles.  Rodia built it without machine equipment, bolts, rivets, or even a ladder.  And, according to our guide, he held things together with coat hangers.

The towers stand 99 1/2 feet tall because 100-feet was the maximum height allowed for the area at the time—and after Rodia completed them, he gave the keys and the deed to his home to his neighbors and left.

My whole excursion took about two and a half hours, or the same time as seeing a movie (and at $7 for the tour, a lot cheaper).  When I got home and posted this pic to my Facebook page, a friend who'd lived in LA for 30 years and recently moved to North Carolina lamented in the comments that she'd never gotten around to seeing the Watts Towers.

I'm glad this challenge gave me the incentive to make sure that I did.

'Hood #2: Downtown ... Underground

Thursday, Jan. 2

'Hood:  Downtown Los Angeles

Tonight, to check "downtown LA" off the list, I took a Metro Rail art tour—a free, docent-led guide of the commissioned art at several Metro Rail stations.

It met up at Union Station, and I was happy to learn that for this particular tour, most of our time would be spent there, then moving on to Civic Center and Pershing Square.

For year I've worked for agencies (including as a consultant for Metro) promoting ridesharing, so I've walked through Union Station many times.  I think it's gorgeous, so what was great about this tour was getting the inside scoop on the art and architecture, as well as "fun facts"... such as how the brass circles in the floor used to be velvet rope poles separating first class train passengers from the rest of humanity...and how the walls are made of cork to absorb sound.

Seriously, though, how beautiful is this?

And the chairs!

At the Civic Center station...

The tour ended at Pershing Square downtown, where there was an ice rink set up for the holidays  As someone who grew up skating in Michigan, I thought it was hilarious to watch a non-stop conga line of Californians clinging to the side of the rink with no clue how to skate.  Ha!


Metro Art Tours are free and typically run the first Saturday/Sunday of each month at 10 a.m.  The tours cover different Metro stations and change regularly.