What Happened to City Support for the Landmark Watts Towers?

Sara Catania has said beautifully what many of us have long known (“Towers of Power,” Oct. 23). The city management of our Watts Towers, a national historic landmark, consistently has been poor and inadequate. Each of the city personnel carefully quoted by Catania shows a disgusting lack of vision and excessive provincialism. The towers belong to all the people. We love our Watts Towers!

Bud Goldstone

Westchester

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As comprehensive as it was, Catania’s piece on the Watts Towers missed a few points. When I take visitors on a tour of Los Angeles, we almost always make a stop at the magnificent towers. During the day, at least, I have never found the neighborhood threatening. I have never taken the guided tour; for a non-architect or artist, the thought of a broken bottle-by-broken bottle discussion is a little daunting. The glory for the layman is in the soaring scope, and it would be nice to have a security guard continuously on duty within the structure so that we could walk in to look at the different angles without taking the tour.

Also, in her suggestions for bringing more attention to the towers, Catania didn’t mention that they are only a short walk from a Metro Blue Line stop, one of the few cases in which a Los Angeles landmark is convenient in the way landmarks are in Eastern cities. Incidentally, I disagree that “there is absolutely nothing like it,” as one source is quoted as saying. Hauterives, France, has the Postman Cheval’s palace, which is different in its structure but similar in its air of fantasy. The human spirit is international.

Robert A. Levine

Los Angeles