Author: Teresa Eilers
One hundred and seven blocks south of Downtown Los Angeles in Watts, CA, a massive steel tower rises almost 100 feet in the sky. Part of a group of 17 interconnected structures, these towers are built of stunning black steel, gilded with a mosaic of abandoned treasures ranging from broken glass, tea kettles, sea shells, pottery, chipped tiles, a bowling ball and the hand-drawn designs of Italian native Simon Rodia.
Built over a 34-year period beginning in 1921, Rodia created the mortar-and-steel towers without the use of machinery, scaffolding, bolts, rivets, welds or a drawing board design. The Watts Towers stand out, in both scale and style, from a crowded block of single-story homes in a neighborhood notorious for violence after its 1965 race riots. Since then, Watts has been avoided by tourists and L.A. natives alike.
Embraced by the community and now a National Historic Landmark, the Watts Towers served as a catalyst for the creation of an art center adjacent to the towers. Today, artistic vigor is spreading throughout the neighborhood once again with assistance from a redevelopment non-profit entitled the Watts House Project.
With temporary offices located across from the famed Towers, the Watts House Project is a community enrichment organization that seeks, through the arts, to facilitate a means to increase social and economic development for some of the city’s most underprivileged. The group describes itself as “collaborative artwork in the shape of a neighborhood redevelopment.”
“[We want to help] dispel [the myth of] Watts as a place where you don’t go,” the WHP Administrator Trinidad Ruiz said.
The neighborhood of Watts is comprised primarily of Latino and African American residents, whose median household income averages $24,728 a year (ranking the neighborhood as one of the poorest in the city of Los Angeles). The hope of the Watts House Project is to refurbish and, to some extent, recreate, 20 houses that surround the Watts Towers to make the residences more livable and more aesthetically engaging.
With the help and insight of the community, the Watts House Project plans to invest funds, time and energy towards the social and economic growth of the neighborhood through various redevelopment projects.
“[The project is] committed to three things: to the families, to the neighborhood and the craft,” Watts House Project Director Edgar Arceneaux said. These ideals are incorporated into each project that the WHP takes on.
To ensure that the community benefits from these renovations to the fullest extent, the WHP hires local community members to complete construction tasks. A blacksmith, a house painter, a roofer, a general contractor, a welder and a cabinet builder all live within the small block of 107th Street. Many of the pre-existing houses were in dire need of repair, and the WHP provided the resources and organization the neighborhood needed to revive itself. With these tools, the neighbors could help one another fulfill the block’s long-standing needs while simultaneously building a sense of community and cooperation.
Projects
Brilliantly painted flowers adorn the exterior of one house, and a mosaic fence surrounds another. These additions are examples of what the Watts House Project calls the “renovation phase.” The WHP, in conjunction with 20 artists and 20 architects, plans to transform the interiors, exteriors and yards of 20 homes in the Watts neighborhood.
The renovation phase began in 2008, and seven projects have since been started. One of the Project’s major renovations, the Love House, was inspired by its owner. His response to the offerings of the Watts House Project was, “I just want love.” And love is what this house will receive. The Project will finance a sculpture depicting the word “love,” which will be placed on the home’s roof. To help fund the renovations to the Love House, the WHP is selling jewelry with the word “love” scripted onto it. It has already earned $26,000 from fundraising.
Out of these seven renovations, the WHP purchased three centrally-located properties to designate as community spaces. One of these buildings will serve as an office for WHP staff who currently work out of a temporary bungalow. Another will be a community common space, perhaps for holding formal meetings, social services and other basic community center services.
Finally, the Watts House Project’s top priority is constructing a café on one of their community-owned properties, which will have a “resident-owner and [will be] resident run,” Arceneaux said. The intention is to provide the community with a comfortable café that will offer food and drink services, which are currently nonexistent in the neighborhood. Furthermore, the café will not only provide a safe place to relax and outdoor seating where community members can interact but also act a form of local economic stimulation.
The café will employ and train young people from the neighborhood in order to stimulate the local economy, while also providing training and experience that will make future employment easier.
Additionally, the cafe’s full kitchen will eventually hold cooking classes. Community members have previously tried to host cooking classes but, due to lack of resources and design, have not been successful on their own. With the infrastructure and organization that the café will provide, community members will have the opportunity to take classes on how to cook nutritious and delicious foods.
The classes will be taught in conjunction with MacArthur Park’s Sandi Romero, founder of Mama’s Hot Tamales Café, a restaurant established to promote economic development and neighborhood revitalization. The Watts House Project and Romero both base their aspirations on the development and well-being of the residents within their neighborhoods.
Volumes of work lie ahead for the Watts House Project, but considering the already drastic progress and improvement, Arceneaux and his team of staff and volunteers should be able to execute all of their goals.
Neighborhood Engagement
After the WHP landscaped her front yard and spruced up the exterior of her house with a dream paint job, Rosa Gutierrez, inspired by the WHP’s mission, joined the committee as the resident coordinator. Arceneaux initially just approached Gutierrez about recreating her home. She recollects that he said to her, “It has to be something you’d like. We want you to be happy.”
So, she told the WHP that she liked flowers and hummingbirds and was flooded with possibilities. “I always had the option to do it however I wanted it. They would always ask me first: Do you like this? Do you like that? And sometimes I would say no, and that was okay,” Gutierrez said.
Thanks to the WHP, the exterior walls of Gutierrez’s home are now covered with vibrantly painted flowers and her yards are full of plant life – just how she wanted her house to be.
Now as resident coordinator, Gutierrez is encouraged to guide the non-profit with her own vision for the neighborhood. Since she was appointed coordinator she has designed the bench that is located on the sidewalk in front of her home, which will soon be covered in a mosaic. Gutierrez also hopes to plant a fruit tree that can provide shade as well as a tasty treat for tourists who visit the towers.
To spread the benefits of the WHP, Gutierrez would like to see the Project join forces with the other numerous surrounding-city project housing complexes in the area to transform the exterior walls of those buildings a well.
The WHP considers Gutierrez’s home one of the more important projects because of its location directly across from the Watts Towers. “Before the WHP redid my house, my home was embarrassing. I wanted to come out, but I saw that there were tourists outside looking at the towers, and so I would wait for them to leave. I didn’t want them to look at me as I went out my noisy, old fence,” she said.
“Before,
people would ignore me. Now tourists ask me questions about the Towers and my house. It feels good that people are attracted to me. I love that my home makes tourists feel more welcome,” she continued.
The WHP provides a means for individuals to transform their lives, as is evident in the case of Gutierrez, and also helps create community cohesion among the neighborhood. After her home became the “Flower House,” Gutierrez stepped to the forefront of the WHP’s cause, inspired by the possibilities of great change.
“It’s not possible for me to move anywhere nicer, so all I can do is try to change my neighborhood,” she said. “People used to be afraid to get out of their cars and walk around when they came to visit the Watts Towers. Now people feel comfortable enough to walk up and down the street and take pictures.”
A neighborhood block club is one example of the area’s transformation. The group of residents aims to create a safer environment for their families, and meets monthly to exchange thoughts and strategies on how to create their ideal neighborhood. Recently, the block club joined forces with the police and closed down a nearby liquor store that had been selling illegal drugs.
“The neighborhood is like a big family now,” Gutierrez said.
Challenges that the Watts House Project Faces
Gentrification has been problematic for South L.A., including Watts, since the 1980s. Though Arceneaux and the WHP cannot foresee all challenges that will confront their projects, they know that they need to be prepared for the fight against gentrification in the area surrounding the Watts Towers.
“As soon as you invest in a property, you incentivize others to do the same,” Arceneaux said.
One way the team hopes to combat the increase in property values and the successive displacement of low-income families is by transforming the community’s renters into property owners. The fact that the Watts House Project intends to combat gentrification is somewhat paradoxical because historically, an influx of artists into any specific area tends to spur displacement of lower-income residents.
Around Occidental, for example, a surge of younger and wealthier individuals have moved into homes traditionally rented by poorer immigrant families, resulting in the displacement of the less wealthy due to the increase in rental rates. The Watts Project is determined to such a situation in the Watts neighborhood.
Another obstacle that the WHP has faced in the past is doubt from the community concerning the project’s motives. Residents found it hard to believe that the development projects would be conducted without them having to pay anything out of pocket.
“Everyone thought: For free? Are they for real?” Gutierrez said.
Although residents are now much less skeptical, the project still has its critics.
Each time that the WHP began an unusual project, it faced disapproval from neighbors. For example, residents initially criticized the bright flowers adorning Gutierrez’s house. Yet, as nearby residents become more involved in WHP, their attitudes seemed to change.
Simon Rodia, the man who created the Watts Towers, experienced that same criticism while he constructed the now iconic landmarks.
Throughout the execution of his towers, Rodia was criticized and humiliated as his neighbors looked upon his handiwork in confusion. However, focused on his goal, he was never deterred. As Rodia once said, “I had it in mind to do something big and I did it.”
Conceptualization
Arceneaux describes the WHP as an experimental and dynamic space where the process of creating art drives the content of what is created.
“Art can be instrumentalized. It can be turned into a utility or towards politics if you want it to. One of the things that I try to advocate for are ripple effects that can be mutually beneficial.
“The objects, aesthetic enhancements, and systems that arise out of this project are merely effects. The true artwork is the collaborative social sculpture at the center of Watts House Project. Instead of using clay, we’re using time and space to sculpt a neighborhood and relationships.”
For more information, visit wattshouseproject.org or befriend Friends of the Watts House Project on Facebook for details on how to get involved.
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