Watts Towers to have parking
The Watts Towers and a nearby arts center will soon have visitor parking again: On Wednesday workers were in the process of turning a vacant lot into a temporary gravel parking area to address employee and neighborhood concerns about safety and street congestion.
The regular parking lot was bulldozed two weeks ago as work began on a $4.7-million youth arts center on the city-operated site -- with no parking alternative then in place for construction expected to last up to 18 months. L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and other officials met Tuesday with residents and preservationists at the Watts Towers Arts Center, and Villaraigosa spokesman Darryl Ryan said the mayor will appoint a Watts Towers Campus Task Force Committee of citizens and city officials to look into long-term management of the site, including a permanent parking solution and the city’s maintenance of the vulnerable towers.
Simon Rodia’s folk-art sculptures, a National Historic Landmark, reach as high as 99 1/2 feet. They must be continually restored as the elements wear away at the fragments of glass, seashell and tile that Rodia embedded in concrete to make up the towers’ decorative scheme.
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-- Mike Boehm
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