[Music]
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 bungalows
flattened impoverished it is the last
place on earth to look for the
extraordinary or for the shadow of
greatness
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the people of the town have long
wondered about Simon Rodia
[Music]
Simon Road illa tileset her by trade
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italian-born American for half a century
builder of defiant towers
[Music]
availeth the parameter and I've got a
bed under my mind I know I want to do
some the things I say I'm gonna do
something I'm gonna do something I'm
gonna do something
for 30 years the man lives alone in a
house with a bed a chair the table with
the music and the faded symbols of the
time when he was young
[Applause]
[Music]
there was something else in the house
a dream of vast structures
for 30 years every day every moment
outside has worked for a living and the
lighten in the darkness Simon Rodia
labored to express the dream
[Music]
with seashells broken bottles pebble
shattered tiles with a discarded the
unwanted the useless with a debris of a
machine written civilization he avoided
he gave color and texture and vitality
to the towers as they arose out of his
inner necessity
with steel girders with wire mesh with
concrete with a bucket a shovel a hammer
a chisel and with his two hands Simon
rodella built inch by inch the huge and
complex structures that look down from
their Heights upon the plain
[Music]
as the towers became a part of the
landscape the neighbor is living under
their shadow where sometimes doubtful
sometimes tolerant often bewildered
rumors about what this might have been
some people thought that doom the time
of war it might have been a secret radio
tower just a work of art of an
individual TV they gentleman that made
it here I remember about almost 10 years
ago he was there working on it so it's
it's a it's a piece of akut the trees up
here and I guess he deaf as a material
here and there to make a pretty scenery
I think you can make that place famous
around here yeah well is it my
estimation about it so many people seem
to know anything about it out of here
there's 1940 and I didn't know anything
about him two blocks away I was only
Avenue and then even know nothing about
him we pass to see me it was believed
that Tokyo Rose was born here and they
said well she was born in watts and most
likely she was born here
[Music]
Simon Rodia 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 so much of people that they
think an hours are crazy and and some
people that they say she's gonna do
something as he was planning his towers
his mind often turned to the past he had
a deep respect for men like Galileo
Michelangelo Marco Polo Columbus marta's
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 Sun
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
girders all that he wanted to do could
be done with a simplest of tools and
with his hand
[Music]
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
work together driven by a sense of
dedication and slowly the formless
became ordered the wire mesh in the
concrete welded the separate parts the
circles of Steel embraced the supporting
period the scattered objects emerged as
designed
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yeah I didn't do all by myself I never
had the singular helper one thing I
could hide in your help or I know have
no money
not a thing I found hiya Manny don't
know what to do a million the time I
don't know what to do myself I were to
wake up all night because the visa was
all the my own idea
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the tall bell towers of Italy recalled
from childhood maybe here and the
minarets and all distant places of
worship and the gilded dome dozing in
hot jungle and high cold aspiring gothic
cathedrals and all man's flow tormented
and during steps towards some light
undefined
[Music]
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 Rodia
[Music]