One man's quest to do something big turned into a 30-year project that culminated in the creation of 17 major sculptures and three towers—the tallest standing at 99-and-a-half feet high. Crazy? A little. An amazing accomplishment of the human spirit? Definitely.

In his spare time from 1921 to 1955, Italian immigrant Sabato "Simon" Rodia single-handedly created the Watts Towers in his front and backyard. The towers are made of steel rods with circular hoops fashioned from found objects like seashells, pottery, cooking utensils, rocks, broken mirrors and glass. (Bet the neighbors loved that!) To create them, Rodia climbed the structures using a window-washer's belt. When he completed the project, which he coined "Nuestro Pueblo" (Our Town), Rodia bequeathed the property to a neighbor and moved to Northern California, where he died in 1965. In 1957, the city deemed Watts Towers unsafe and tried to tear them down. But after being tested and proven secure, the towers were saved by community members, who started teaching arts classes at the location in 1962. Today, Watts Towers is on the National Register of Historic Places and is one of LA's six National Historic Landmarks. The Watts Towers Arts Center, at 1727 E. 107th St., is operated by LA's Cultural Affairs Department and offers art exhibits, tours, lectures, workshops and youth arts programs. The Center hosts a jazz festival and the Watts Towers Day of the Drum Festival each year during the last weekend of September. —Mai Dinh