{"nrhp_refnum":"77000297","name":"Watts Towers of Simon Rodia","other_names":["Towers of Simon Rodia"],"category":"site","location":{"address":"1765 E. 107th St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Los Angeles","county":"Los Angeles County","state":"CA","lat":33.93874342700005,"lon":-118.24113461896773,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1977-04-13","is_nhl":true,"nhl_designated_date":"1990-12-14","areas_of_significance":["Architecture","European","Art"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A site in the Watts community of Los Angeles, California, consisting of eight hand-built towers, a surrounding wall and a decorated garden, created by Simon Rodia between 1921 and 1954.","why_significant":"The nomination presents the towers as an internationally recognized work of folk art, architecture and sculpture, built by one man without help. It notes the unusual materials, which include steel, cement, shells, glass and scrap, and compares the work to Gaudi's. It also records the successful load test that saved the towers from a city demolition order in the late 1950s.","narrative":"Rising from a pie-shaped plot in South Central Los Angeles, eight hand-built towers and a decorated garden were made by Simon Rodia, an Italian immigrant who worked on them alone for 33 years, from 1921 to 1954. Two towers reach nearly 100 feet, and the rest average about 40 feet. Rodia built them from steel rods, pipes, wire and cement, then embedded shells, glass, tile and crockery in the surface. A scalloped wall encloses a garden of fountains, pavilions and patterned paving. Rodia drew on his earlier work as a tile setter and telephone lineman. The nomination describes the towers as a leading example of twentieth-century folk art and compares them to the work of Antonio Gaudi. In the late 1950s the city ordered them demolished, but a load test using force comparable to a hurricane left the towers standing, and the city agreed to keep them as part of a community center.","period_of_significance":"1921-54","architect_builder":"Simon Rodia","architectural_style":null,"criteria":[],"status_note":"Occupied and patrolled, publicly owned by the City of Los Angeles, and used as a museum; the condition checkbox is not legible in the text.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:31.27303-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_CA/77000297.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/77000297/cf0df10af5-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/77000297/cf0df10af5-1600.webp","licence":"Public domain","author":"Carol M. Highsmith","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Highsmithwattstowers.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Carol M. Highsmith</a>, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Highsmithwattstowers.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/123859611","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts_Towers","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q445256"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/california/los-angeles-county/watts-towers-of-simon-rodia-77000297/"}