Medford mail tribune., October 20, 1963, Image 40

GALLERY OF UNUSUAL PEOPLE
An Immigrant's
Strange "Towers
of Gratitude"
By HENRY P. CHAPMAN
I welve-year-old Sabatino Ro-
J- dia's eyes were as big as pizzas
when he landed in America in
1891. For him, it was a genuine
love at first sight.
Thirty years later, he began expressing
his gratitude to the U.S.A. by building
structures that were as fantastic as some
thing in a fairy tale. For 33 years, the
Italian-born tile setter wove tons of cast
ofT pipes, bed frames, and discarded bot
tles and crockery into intricate conical
webs which today spiral 10 stories into
the I -os Angeles sunshine.
Then, at 75, Rodia just walked away
why or where was not known for years.
The abandoned cluster of towers stood
like a bevy of neglected beauties, winking
their thousands of glass eyes for atten
tion. Children found them a veritable Dis
neyland, but most people in the neighbor
hood referred to them as "those 100-foot
piles of junk." In 1957, the Los Angeles
Huilding Department deemed the towers
dangerous and ordered them removed.
Hut two men who looked upon them as
works of art came to the rescue, and soon
William Cnrtwright and Nicholas King
were joined by attorneys, engineers, ar
chitects, and ordinary citizens in an ef
fort to save the towers.
Artists and sculptors wandered through
the maze of steel and mortar admiring
Rodia's sense of design and proportion,
his dynamic use of color and texture. Tech
nical experts who examined the towers
were astounded. There was no welding in
evidence! Nor a single rivet! Rodia had
simply wrapped chicken wire around the
joints, covered that with mortar, then
more chicken wire, then more mortar.
After long, dragged-out hearings, the
Building Department proposed that a pull
test be made on Rodia's tallest spire. Scaf
folding and rigging were erected, and ma
chinery began applying stress slowly
100 pounds . . . 150 . . . 200. If the tower
were unsafe, a pull force of 350 pounds
would topple it.
"Three hundred pounds right now!" a
workman yelled. Spectators raised their
opened hands in unconscious gestures of
holding up the tower. "Three hundred and
fifty pounds!" The crowd roared out with
cheers. But the test was not over. Stress
was increased to 500 pounds . . . 600 . . .
700! By the time it reached 10,000 pounds,
something had to give and it did. Like a
chuckle, a solitary seashell tinkled off the
tower to the pavement. The test was over.
Early this year, members of the Cul
tural Heritage Board of Los Angeles
declared the structures a "work of art"
and designated them "a cultural and his
torical monument."
The glow from the spotlight of pub
licity on the towers was reflected into the
tiny town of Martinez, near San Fran
cisco and found Rodia living contentedly
in his self-imposed obscurity. Why had he
deserted his towers? Rodia sucked on his
pipe, then answered in a puff of smoke,
"Some people thought I was crazy."
Rodia's towers were not planned. "A
million times I don't know what I do
next," the 84-year-old immigrant said. "I
have nothing on paper. Only here," he
tapped his temple, "and here," he tapped
his heart. "I want to do something for the
United States because there are nice peo
ple in this country."
Sabatino Rodia gave more than a
third of his life to creating huge structures that are
fantastic even for California
Family Weekly. Ortobrr JO. IX