NEA awards Watts arts grant amid Towers skate park controversy
As controversy mounts the federal government announced Tuesday that it will pump $350,000 into Watts
in hopes of sparking an arts-drivenrevitalization of the historically poor neighborhoods.
On Monday, the top state parks official in Los Angeles complained
that councilwoman Janice Hahn’s plan to build a major skate park
next to the Watts Towers is being railroaded through city government,
and called for a full-scale environmental review of the project rather
than the relatively cursory one contemplated by the city’s Recreation
and Parks Department.
Sean Woods, superintendent for the state parks department’s
Los Angeles sector, says far more information and public input
is needed regarding the skate facility and how it might affect
the fragile, state-owned towers, a national historic monument
that’s considered one of America’s greatest folk-art masterpieces.
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Meanwhile, the National Endowment for the Arts rolled out the
first wave of funding under its new Our Town initiative, launched
by NEA chairman Rocco Landesman, a former Broadway producer
who named it in honor of Thornton Wilder’s signature drama. The program provides money to partnerships between
local governments and private arts groups, aiming to use the arts as a tool to revitalize cities. The NEA announced
51 grants totaling $6.6 million.
The city of Los Angeles’ Department of Cultural Affairs will receive $250,000 -– the maximum -– for design work
aimed at turning the historic, 1904-vintage Watts Train Station on E. 103rd Street into an exhibition space and
visitors’ center where tourists can learn about Watts’ history and cultural offerings, including the Watts Towers,
four blocks away on E. 107th Street.
The small, yellow wooden station, a former Southern Pacific Railroad stop, is nestled against the 103rd Street/
Kenneth Hahn station platform on the Metro Blue Line; it houses a neighborhood office of the city’s
Department of Water and Power.
The NEA grant also will cover design work for an “artist pathway” that visitors could follow on foot from the
train station to the Watts Towers, encountering art installations along the way. Additional funds would be
needed to execute the vistors’ center and pathway; the Watts Labor Community Action Committee and the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art will be involved in the planning.The NEA also will give $100,000 to the
Los Angeles County Arts Commission to help it develop a cultural plan for Willowbrook, where the county is
investing more than $600 million to redevelop the Martin Luther King Jr. Medical Campus. More than
$1 million will be set aside for a major public art commission on the campus, and other arts-related projects
are envisioned to improve the area’s streetscape and economic viability.
The NEA funding will help officials find out what residents in Willowbrook and surrounding neighborhoods
want and get from the arts, and identify artists living there, said Letitia Fernandez Ivins, assistant director
of the arts commission’s civic arts program. “We want to make sure the arts is part of the overall
conversation in planning for the community,” she said.
A series of community meetings will include film screenings or performances so they are not just
discussions, but art-happenings in themselves, Ivins said. LA Common, a Leimert Park-based nonprofit
group that fosters grassroots neighborhood arts projects, will be the arts commission’s partner in
developing a Willowbrook arts plan.
– Mike Boehm
Photo: Watts Towers. Credit: Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times