THE TOWERS

[Music] [Music] e the little community of Watts clings to the outer edge of the city of Los Angeles a scattered collection of shacks trailers and weather-beaten [Music] Bungalows flat and impoverished it is the last place on Earth to look for the extraordinary or for the shadow of [Music] greatness the people of the town have long wondered about Simon rodilla Simon rodilla tile Setter by trade Italian born American for half a century builder of defiant [Music] Towers [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] I bu the of myself and I got that on my mind I know I want to do something thing I I say I'm going to do something I'm going to do something I'm going to do something for 30 years a man lives alone in a house with a bed a chair a table with the music and The Faded symbols of the time when he was [Applause] [Music] young [Music] [Applause] there was something else in the house a dream of vast [Music] structures for 30 years every day every moment outside his work for a living in the light and in the darkness Simon rodilla labored to express the [Music] dream with sea shells broken bottles Pebbles shattered tiles with the discarded The Unwanted the useless with a debris of a machine ridden civilization he avoided he gave color and texture and vitality to the towers as they arose out of his inner necessity [Music] with steel gers with wire mesh with concrete with a bucket a shovel a hammer a chisel and with his two hands Simon rodilla built inch by inch the huge and complex structures that look down from their heights upon the plane [Music] [Applause] [Music] as the towers became a part of of the landscape the neighbors living under their Shadow were sometimes doubtful sometimes tolerant often bewildered I don't know what it is myself I don't know what it is I've often wondered what it was there's rumors about what this might have been some people thought that during the time of War it might have been a secret radio tower it's just a work of of of art of an individual don't you think the gentleman that made it here I remember about almost 10 years ago he was still working on it so it's a it's a it's a a piece of artistic up here and uh I guess he gather the material here and [Music] there to make a pretty scenery I think so people would come and he could make that place famous around here any well my estimation about it don't many people seem to know anything about it because I live here since 1940 and I didn't know anything about it in two blocks of here I on May Avenue and I didn't even know nothing about it don't p and seen it it was believed that Tokyo Rose was born here and they said well uh she was born in ws and most likely she was born here [Music] Simon rodilla listened patiently to everything that was said then he continued his work unchanged undisturbed some of my people they say what is he doing or some other people that they thinking I was crazy and uh and some people that they say he's going to do something as he was planting his Towers his mind often turned to the Past he had a deep respect for men like Galileo Michelangelo Marco Polo Columbus Martyrs Builders explorers men of stature he hoped that in some way his work was related to their tradition yet he sought nothing for himself he was content to think of Great Men and to build in the direction of the [Music] son he was undistracted by the great devices and disasters of his Era radio television radar Electronics the blinding atom flashed across the modern scene he went on bending steel into geres all that he wanted to do could be done with a simplest of tools and with his [Music] hands it began in the man a stranger in a new country he was untrained unskilled but he had an urgent need for expression the elements worked together driven by a sense of dedication and and slowly the formless became ordered the wire mesh and the concrete welded the separate parts the circles of Steel embraced the supporting gires the scattered objects emerged as [Music] design [Music] yeah I did all by myself I never had a single helper one thing I couldn't hi any helper I don't had no money not a think if I hire a man he don't know what to do a million time I don't know what to do myself I was wake up all night because this was all of my own [Music] idea the tall bell towers of Italy recalled from childhood maybe here and the minettes and all distant places of worship and the Gilded domes dozing in hot jungles and high cold aspiring Gothic Cathedrals and all man slow tormented enduring steps toward some light [Music] undefined the Builder signed his work with the imprint of his tools and with his initials his eyes were now lit with a quiet Pride of the Craftsman I had it in my mind to do something big and I did said Simon [Music] rodilla [Music] nah I