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Watts, California

January 13, 2007

More commonly known as Watts Towers, this turned out to be the biggest surprise of our trip to southern California. My preconceived notions of the monument were all wrong. Deep urban landscapes surround the area. But in the midst of that, the towers stand -- beautiful, graceful, colorful, unexpected, and more than a little awesome. Built single-handedly by immigrant Simon Rodia over a period of 33 years, the towers consist of several sculptures made of steel and covered with mortar embedded with pieces of ceramic tile, pottery shards, sea shells, and broken glass. The tallest tower is nearly 100 feet high and contains the longest slender column of reinforced concrete in the world.