Battle is brewing over a proposed skate park near the Watts Towers*

Plans to build a large skateboarding park next to Simon Rodia’s folk-art masterpiece, the Watts Towers, has unhappy admirers of the towers girding for a land-use fight against high-powered opposition.

City Councilwoman Janice Hahn, whose district includes Watts, is a key proponent of the skate park, which also is being pushed by Circe Wallace, a manager for the L.A. sports marketing and management company, Wasserman Media Group, and two of her pro skateboarder clients, Terry Kennedy and Paul Rodriguez. Skateboarding star Tony Hawk has raised $44,000 toward its estimated cost of $350,000 or more.

Although acknowledging that youngsters in Watts need more recreational opportunities, opponents of the skate park, which would be longer than a football field and two-thirds as wide, are asking why it has to occupy a vacant parcel about 40 yards from the vulnerable towers.

They worry that a noisy attraction could interfere with visitors’ enjoyment of the towers and that the skate park could bring in graffiti taggers, drug users and violence, threatening both the physical safety of Rodia’s fantastical, ornately decorated structures and their potential to draw tourism.

Hahn says she has focused on the towers-adjacent parcel because, unlike other potential sites in Watts, no gang claims the spot as part of its turf. She also thinks a skate park can complement the towers by bringing more youngsters in contact with the arts programs there and says there’s nothing unwholesome about skate culture that would pose a threat to the landmark’s security or to a neighboring, city-run exhibition space and youth arts center.

The plan began with Circe Wallace, a senior vice president at Wasserman Media Group, who represents skateboarders and other action-sports clients, including L.A.-based riders and skate-park proponents Paul Rodriguez and Terry Kennedy. Wallace’s boss, Casey Wasserman, is a trustee of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and his Wasserman Foundation donated $1.5 million to the museum in 2007.

Click here for today's story on the budding skate-park controversy, which one neighborhood advocate of the towers worries could divide the community between supporters of recreation and backers of culture.

-- Mike Boehm

*Updated: An earlier verison of this story said the Wasserman Group was backing the proposed skateboarding park near the Watts Towers. While the proponents include a manager employed by WMG  and two of the pro skateboarders she represents, they are pursuing the initiative as individuals rather than as representatives of the company.

Related:

Strapped city wants donors for Watts Towers conservation

Towers of power

Photos, from top: Circe Wallace, of Wasserman Media Group, and pro skaters Terry Kennedy, center, and Paul Rodriguez, key proponents of a skateboarding park near the Watts Towers, at the planned site.  Credit: Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times. Conceptual design for the skate park. Credit: California Skateparks

 

Comments

[Donald Frazell]

Why cant they be the same thing? Art is about life, and if this promotes coming together, great. i have seen many skate parks, and never seen grafitti, either here in the LBC or in Culver City. most kids just stand around and talk, quietly, waiting their turn or just posing. Just like overaged surfers who like to bob in the ocean for two hours and then brag about how they surfed all day, see that all the time.

It would be great to let kids see the towers as part of their neighborhood, and develop some pride in it, themselves, and the park as a neutral ground to make friends and talk. Which is what art is supposed to promote. Not selfish monologues, but different ideas swirling about and cross fertilizing. Something the art world so far has failed to do, as few go to the Towers, which are usually under reconstruction and off limits anyway.

If the Getty,LACMA and MoCA are going to fail their missions, as they should have gotten involved with this greatest of LA treasures long ago, then go for it. Life must go on, and it is about we, about US, and whether we like it or not, kids are us.

art collegia delenda est

[Marshall]

This is the perfect location for a skate park. Young people love the towers, and the towers were always about community, being a place for gathering and coming together. Having the park near the towers would introduce a whole new generation of people from far beyond Watts to LA's most important artifact.

[Skateboarding Cultural Historian]

Any legitimate opportunity for Watts to get past the stigma of being the armpit of Los Angeles is worth consideration, especially if it has long reaching positive social impacts for the community at large.

If Watts Towers is so valuable to the community, why wouldn't they want to include the children? Have they any idea the type of social-economic boom a facility of that stature would do for the community?

Talk about a tourist destination, how about providing opportunities for the community to grow? All these critics are acting like hypocritical cultural snobs. Kids in this community are already marginalized by neighborhood gangs and drugs, why continue this cycle of abuse? Why create more crime? Why not create more opportunity for the future?

Skateboarding is something many have used to rise out of poverty since its an equal opportunity employer.

Watts is one of the poorest communities in Los Angeles County, full of crime and poverty. Any effort to propel this community forward should be accepted wholeheartedly. Performing arts like skateboarding most definitely go hand in hand with installation art. I'm an artist and skateboarder who has attended the Simon Rodia tour, it brought tears to my eyes.

A chance to link one of thee most under appreciated art sculptures in LA to the youth of tomorrow sounds like a golden opportunity to instill the values we hold so dear: culture, history, respect for elders, etc. This is a chance to hand down that legacy to the youth of today and tomorrow in what is being referred to as a sacred site...

[Guillermo Aviles-Rodriguez]

I was born and raised in the shadow of the Watts Towers. I now teach in Watts’ only middle school and run the Watts Village Theater Company, so when I speak about our Towers I do so, ex imo corde.
In “Rad Element” by Mike Boehm he begins with a question that is both sophistic and over subtle. The central question in this story is not “Should a Tony Hawk-endorsed skateboard park be a neighbor to… the Watts Towers?” But rather why are the same city officials who admit that our Towers “have been drastically underfunded”, not spending their time fundraising for more conservation funds rather than for a skate park? What good will a cultural district and skate-park do if our Towers crumble? Why has no one told the Wasserman Media Group that they should help the Towers before they use them?
The real question of this story is why are the leaders in Watts looking for safe neutral territory to build on instead of making it?

[Maria Diaz]

yes , do it .. ARE KIDS NEED THIS KIND OF STUFF. THEY HAVE TO BE BUSY THIS IS GOOD FOR ARE KIDS... WHAT MORE DO THEY HAVE .. ITS BETTER FOR THEM TO BE OUTDOOR THAN IN DOOR IN THE COMPUTER...

[Donald Frazell]

A guy I work with lives a block away from the tower, has a baby girl, and supports the idea completely. Elias takes the Green line to work here near LAX and rides his bike the rest of the way, and no way wants to see any problems in his neighborhood. He is actually in the process of buying a home nearby. And he sees no problems at all, a great upside, in having both the skate park AND, if LA Artistes ever get of their butts, a repaired and marketed Towers to anchor a lively family area. Bring the fair skinned, isolated Hillboys and Westsiders down to the rest of LA, and see how America lives.

We wont bite, the world is far better represented here in the LBC, the area with Cerritos and Bellflower known as the most integrated economically and ethnically in the country. The art world has only one minority, and it thinks it controls the art world, as it does WeHo's. Well they do there, and large in Long Beach too, where all are welcome. Let the kids do something, idle hands are the devils tools. Old sayins are quite true, some just dont want to admit it, as its not in their selfish interests. Experience counts, respect the old. God knows we got lots of them down here too.

Humanity first, and kids need places to find order AND burn off all that energy, and skate parks are far from being dens of inequity, been watching too many dumb Hollywood movies like Dogtown. Patrol the area from time to time and let them know adults are in control, and all is good.

[Beaman]

This is a park - Not a skate park! If you don't street skate, what is there to ride?

[William Wray]

Perhaps the funding and design could be tied in together? Perhaps a stylized nod to the towers in the design and a percentage of the park funding given to help finally get the renovation done at the Watts towers . Maybe even the kids from the parks could learn about volunteering and help with the renovation?