One man spent 33 years building this 100-foot tower in South LA with his bare hands

Watts Towers is unlike anything you’ve ever seen

A small triangular lot in South Los Angeles holds 17 connected sculptures that one man built entirely by hand over 33 years.

The tallest climbs nearly 100 feet, and on a sunny day the whole structure throws light in every direction off thousands of pieces of glass, tile, and pottery.

This is the Watts Towers, a National Historic Landmark and one of the most recognized works of folk art in the country. The closer you get, the stranger and more wonderful it becomes.

Simon Rodia built all of this alone

Between 1921 and 1954, Italian immigrant Simon Rodia worked on this site without machines, scaffolding, bolts, or welding. No crew.

Just one man and whatever materials he could find. He called it “Nuestro Pueblo,” which means “our town.”

Neighbors and local children brought him broken pottery and glass, and he put all of it to use. When he finally finished, he handed the property over and moved away.

He never came back. What he left behind took the world decades to fully appreciate.

Every inch is covered in something salvaged

Rodia pressed tile, seashells, pottery shards, and rocks into wet mortar by hand. The green glass came from soda bottles made between the 1930s and 1950s.

The blue glass came from old medicine bottles. Broken dishware from nearby makers adds bursts of color across the surface.

Almost nothing here was bought new. Everything came from somewhere else first, and Rodia found a place for all of it.

Running your eye along a single wall feels like reading a story written in other people’s discarded things.

Slow down or you’ll miss half of it

The details don’t announce themselves. Look at a section of wall for 30 seconds and you’ll see tile.

Look for two minutes and you’ll start finding bottle bottoms, embedded shells, and small figurines tucked into the mortar. The patterns shift depending on where you stand and how the light falls.

Many visitors say they keep spotting new things the longer they study a single panel. This is not a place to speed through.

Give yourself time to just stand there and look.

One section looks like a ship heading to sea

Part of the structure takes the shape of a tall sailing ship, sometimes called the Ship of Marco Polo. Wave patterns run through the walls as if the vessel is moving.

Around the grounds you’ll find birdbaths, fountains, and a circular gazebo. A center spire with connecting rings ties everything together.

The whole thing feels both carefully planned and a little wild, like someone followed a vision only they could see and somehow made it work.

These towers shrugged off a major earthquake

Rodia wrapped bent steel rods in wire mesh, then packed mortar around everything by hand. No welding anywhere.

The structure draws its strength from shapes found in nature, and it shows.

When the 1994 Northridge earthquake hit Los Angeles, the towers came through with only minor damage. Engineers once applied thousands of pounds of force trying to test the limits of the structure.

The towers held.

Whatever Rodia understood about building, he understood it in a way that conventional engineering has had a hard time explaining.

A guided tour gets you inside the fence

The tower enclosure opens only on guided tours, and that’s the way to see it. From the street you get a sense of the scale.

From inside the fence you get the details. Guides walk you through the stories and symbols hidden across the site, and the pace is relaxed enough that you can stop, ask questions, and really look.

It’s the difference between reading the title of a book and actually reading the book.

The arts center right next door

Step out of the tower enclosure and you’re standing beside the Watts Towers Arts Center.

When it’s open, the center runs rotating exhibits of contemporary art and has shown the work of more than a thousand artists over the years.

Outside, a life-size statue of Rodia faces his creation, which is a detail worth pausing on.

The center has been the cultural core of this community for decades, and the work it shows reflects that connection directly.

Art classes have shaped this community for generations

The campus also includes the Charles Mingus Youth Arts Center, where programming has covered painting, sculpture, photography, music, dance, and more.

When classes are running, they draw young people and adults from the neighborhood. The whole effort grew out of art instruction that started on this very site years ago.

The idea here has always been that creativity belongs to the community, not just to the people who show up to look at it from behind a fence.

Drums, dancing, and food fill the grounds every September

Each fall, the campus hosts the Watts Towers Day of the Drum Festival.

Performers bring drumming traditions from across the world, and the grounds fill with drum circles, dancing, craft booths, families, and food.

The towers rise over the whole scene as a backdrop that would be hard to design on purpose. It’s one of those events where the setting and the activity actually match each other.

If your trip lines up with the date, you’ll land in the middle of something worth being part of.

One of the oldest jazz festivals in Los Angeles

Right after the drum festival comes the Simon Rodia Watts Towers Jazz Festival, which ranks among the longest-running music festivals in the city.

Jazz, gospel, blues, and soul fill the day, and the lineup draws from the many cultures that built Los Angeles’s musical identity. Both festivals are free and open to all ages.

You don’t need a ticket, a reservation, or a plan. You just show up.

The whole world is paying attention now

Tens of thousands of people visit the Watts Towers each year, traveling from across the country and around the world to see what one man built in a vacant lot.

The site holds recognition as a national, state, and city landmark, and officials have begun the process of seeking World Heritage status. A major restoration wrapped up in 2022 and the site reopened to visitors.

After more than a century, the towers are in better shape than they’ve been in years, and the line of people coming to see them keeps getting longer.

Visit the Watts Towers of Simon Rodia State Historic Park

You can find the towers at 1765 East 107th Street in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. The guided tours run through the Watts Towers Arts Center next door, so check the official website before you go.

As of 2026, the site is working through a temporary renovation pause, with guided tours and exhibitions expected to resume in July 2026. Tours can also pause on rainy days.

The nearby Metro station makes the whole trip easy without a car.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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