Watts Towers or giant tuteurs?

RE “Twisted Sense of Order” [Sept. 22]: Fanciful tuteurs are surely an inspiration for expressive gardeners! Surprisingly, tuteurs resemble the Watts Towers in their materials and method of construction.

Italian immigrant Sabato (Simon) Rodia bent thousands of rebars and wired them together to create the amazing geometry of Nuestro Pueblo. Now known as the Watts Towers, they appear to have a welded inner armature but they do not. They are wired, like a tuteur.

Rodia, using heavier rebar than the 3/8 -inch kind in the story, bent the steel rods with his body power, assisted by nearby Red Car tracks. He inserted rebar under the tracks, lifted up the other end and bent all the arcs in his three big spires, which reach nearly 100 feet.

JEANNE S. MORGAN

Chair Pro Tem,

Committee for Simon Rodia’s

Towers in Watts