Two years after a $1.9-million seismic repair job was completed, on the
Simon Rodia's Towers, activists are complaining that LA city officials are letting
the quirky urban landmark fall apart, ignoring safety and preservation issues.

The Towers, (whose creation started 82 years ago by Rodia), draw 25,000 visitors yearly, and is a collection of towers, the tallest of three towers which is 100 ft tall,
and is surrounded by 12 others towers as high as 40 feet.

This impressive structure was built of cast off materials, and is held together only by mortar, rebar, mesh and wire, instead of bolts, rivets, or welding!

The Watts Towers, is a cultural icon, and source of great pride to the South Central Afro American community. [Located 12 miles directly East of Los Angeles Airport.]
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ISSUE IS UP IN THE AIR

Safety concerns at Watts Towers prompt state to order a review.
The city says there is no risk.

Los Angeles Times
By Christopher Reynolds
Times Staff Writer
June 12, 2003

Two years after a $1.9-million seismic repair job at the Watts Towers, a committee of longtime activists is complaining that Los Angeles city officials are letting the quirky urban landmark fall apart, and state officials have hired outside experts in response to give a third opinion on the site's safety and preservation.

City officials say the complaints are overblown and there is no safety risk, a view echoed by on-site engineering and conservation consultants to the city. But those consultants acknowledge that the city's Cultural Affairs Department hasn't followed through on repeated requests for money to pay for closer inspections, and that some upper reaches of the towers — which rise as high as 99 feet, 6 inches — haven't been closely examined for seven years, possibly longer.

Facing this conflict, officials at the state Department of Parks and Recreation — which owns the towers and leases them to the city — in March decided to spend $10,000 to have structural engineer John Kariotis and materials scientist Frank Preusser evaluate the site and the city's preservation plan.

The central problem, said Preusser, is that "the towers have what I call inherent vice: built-in instability" because of vulnerability to corrosion from moisture. Preusser said he was reluctant to elaborate before reviewing more documents, and that if liability issues can be solved, he hopes to make a close inspection with the aid of a 110-foot cherry-picker. But so far, he said, "I think the city is making a diligent effort to preserve the towers."

Also invited to the March meeting was Timothy P. Whelan, director of the Getty Conservation Institute. From a quick look, Whelan said, he was unable to form any meaningful opinion on safety issues, but he said, "I think the towers are in active deterioration." Whelan said the Getty would be happy to advise on the development of a management plan for the site, but so far the city and state haven't asked.

Preusser and Kariotis, both based in Los Angeles County, are expected to return their opinions in August, but if past tussles over the site are fair indication, the dispute may simmer longer.

The controversy began soon after the day, about 82 years ago, when Italian immigrant Sabato (often known as Sam or Simon) Rodia began a binge of unpermitted construction at his triangular residential property on East 107th Street.

City officials estimate that the towers draw 25,000 visitors yearly. Their surfaces are decorated with bits of bottles, tiles, toys, pottery, shells and other items. Instead of bolts, rivets or welding, they depend on mortar, rebar, mesh and wire for structural support.

Rodia, a construction worker who came to the U.S. from Italy as a youth, built the towers over more than three decades, beginning in 1921. In his 40s when he began the towers, Rodia worked with castoff materials and without written plans, and in about 1954 he handed over his deed to a neighbor and abruptly left town.

By the time Rodia died in 1965 in Martinez, Calif., ownership of the towers had passed to members of a citizens' group called the Committee for Simon Rodia's Towers in Watts, which successfully fought off a city effort to demolish the towers. Among the members of that committee were aeronautical engineer N.J. "Bud" Goldstone and community activist Jeanne S. Morgan.

Over the following years, as disputes flared over how to care for the site and who should do it, ownership passed from the committee to the city to the state, which in 1978 signed a 50-year pact leasing the property back to the city. In 2001, workers completed a seven-year seismic repair job to the site's three tallest towers and two nearby walls, with the cost paid by federal earthquake relief funds.

But critics, still led by Goldstone (who lives in Westchester) and Morgan (who now lives in Santa Barbara), say the city has done too little to spot and seal cracks in those areas and the rest of the site, which includes another 12 structures as high as 40 feet.

"They don't want to spend a dime," said Goldstone, 77, who served as the city's consulting engineer at the site from 1986 until 2000, when his contract wasn't renewed. (He is also co-author of a 1997 book on the towers published by the Getty Museum.)

"Pieces are falling down and have been for months. I'm nervous about people getting hurt," said Goldstone, who said he visits the site about once a month.

"The city just doesn't take it seriously," said Morgan, who said her last visit was in April.

Michael Cornwell, who serves as president of the city Cultural Heritage Commission, says he's not impressed with the city's efforts. "I don't think that they follow up on the recommendations that they receive I think they'd like to get rid of it, frankly, and let the state take it."

Meanwhile, at the city's Cultural Affairs Department, site curator Virginia Kazor suggests that Goldstone is assuming that debris on the ground came from up high, when it may have been dug up or placed there by a conservation worker. Every weekday, Kazor said, workers look for cracks and log items that fall or are unearthed, most of them bits of glass and pottery measuring less than an inch and weighing less than an ounce or two. She's had no reports of any injuries to any visitors, she said.

Conservator Zuleyma Aguirre, a consultant to the city who keeps an office at the site and logs details of repairs and deterioration, said the only debris she has seen fall from overhead is tiny bits of glass, usually dislodged amid rains or strong winds. Structural engineer Mel Green, a consultant to the city since 2000, said he sees no safety threat to visitors.

But Green and Aguirre acknowledged that over the last three years, their requests for equipment to make inspections of areas above eye level have been unavailing, apparently because of tight budgets. City records show a March 19, 2002, memo from Aguirre to site curator Kazor seeking two days' use of a cherry-picker or comparable machinery because "an updated inspection of the three tall towers 70 feet and higher is needed."

Kazor said she's still trying to arrange the loan of equipment from another city department.

The city expects to spend about $168,000 on Watts Towers operation and maintenance in the 2002-03 fiscal year, Kazor said, along with roughly $100,000 in state grant funds. She expects a roughly comparable budget in 2003-04.

"People keep saying, when are we going to be finished? Well, probably never," Kazor said. "Concrete cracks. We seal the cracks as quickly as we can, because water is the real culprit in destroying the towers. It's probably a project that will be going on forever."

Issue is up in the air
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