1 ODD ONES AND SHOPS / WATTS, LOS ANGELES
Watts Towers
One man, hand tools, no plans, three decades, 99-foot spires. A single immigrant laborer built these lacy steel-and-concrete spires alone over more than 30 years, making them one of the great works of outsider art and engineering anywhere.
The facts
Blank means no source we checked says
| Where | 1765 E. 107th Street, Watts, Los Angeles |
|---|---|
| Built | 1921–1954 |
| Architect or builder | Sabato Rodia |
| Kind | Odd ones and shops |
| Status | standing |
| Visiting | public |
| From El Segundo City Hall | 10.1 miles, straight line |
| Coordinates | 33.93874, -118.24105 |
What the sources say
Quoted word for word, with labels
- Rodia built the towers alone, with hand tools and no predetermined design.
He built them with no special equipment or predetermined design, working alone with hand tools.
Wikipedia ↗ reported - The tallest tower reaches 99.5 feet.
The tallest of the towers is 99.5 feet (30.3 m).
Wikipedia ↗ reported - The frames are steel rebar covered in Rodia's own concrete mix.
constructed from steel rebar and Rodia's own concoction of a type of concrete.
Wikipedia ↗ reported
Labels: fact is an official or owner source, listing a venue page, reported one news outlet or an encyclopedia. Checked Nov 3, 2026. See something wrong? Send a correction with a public link.
Nearby on the list
Closest entries, straight line
- SpaceX Hawthorne factory, Hawthorne 5.1 mi
- SoFi Stadium, Inglewood 5.7 mi
- Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Exposition Park, Los Angeles 5.9 mi
← No. 65: Queen Mary · No. 2: Hyperion Water Reclamation Plant → · All on the map
Cite this
For people, papers and AI answers
Watts Towers. elsegundo.xyz Architecture, checked Nov 3, 2026. https://elsegundo.xyz/architecture/watts-towers/
Machine-readable: this entry is record 1 in catalog.json. Not an official City of El Segundo page, and not written with or for the owner.