Projects aimed at showcasing famed towers give area a lift. (Spotlight on Watts).

SINCE being decimated by riots more than three decades ago, Watts has been a community of broken promises and false starts.

But a few projects taking root on a crescent-shaped block near the landmark Watts Towers could provide a foundation it can build upon.

The projects, close to the Metro Blue Line's 103rd Street station, include the Cultural Crescent Amphitheater, Watts Towers Art Center, and the restored Watts Historical Train Station, which is slated to open next year as a museum.

Community activists say that these and other developments may finally capture the public's attention, creating the tourist attraction the towers have always promised to become.

One hopeful sign sits a few miles to the west, where the $8.3 million Imani Fe Courtyard project calls for a mixed-use office and retail complex to replace an abandoned gas station and a blighted mini mall. No lease commitments have been signed, but officials say there has been interest from national merchants.

"This community has waited a long time for these projects," said Councilwoman Janice Hahn, whose district includes Watts. "Whether they will be the turnaround the community has been waiting for remains to be seen."

Capturing public attention

At present, the current group of Watts business owners has shown little interest in a formal association, according to Addie Little, an economic development specialist with the Small Business Administration, which grants low-interest loans.

Storefront merchants may be drawing decent revenues from the area, but many deal in all-cash transactions and don't pay taxes, Little said.

Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn cast a spotlight on the area when he announced in February that an arts and music center would be named after Charles Mingus, the jazz legend who grew up in Watts. The project, to be built next to the existing arts center, has secured enough funding for its $3 million price tag.

Separately, the Wattstar Theatre & Education Center will house two 300-seat movie theaters, along with classrooms and laboratories for teaching film-industry trades. But despite a long list of celebrity supporters, only $3 million has been raised so far out of a $17 million target.

Watts, located seven miles south of downtown, is named after Charles H. Watts, a Pasadena resident who in 1902 donated 10 acres of land to the Pacific Electric Co. to create a rail junction for its Long Beach-to-Santa Ana line. Five years later, the area's 1,400 residents -- mostly poor sugar beet farmers -- incorporated into a town called Watts Junction, centered at 103rd Street and what is now Compton Avenue.

The town was populated by Germans, Scots, Mexicans, Italians, Greeks, Jews, Japanese and African-Americans. During the Prohibition era, Watts became a haven for bootleggers.

Watts had no exclusive racial covenants, allowing it to become one of the first places African-Americans coalesced in Los Angeles. By 1926, blacks dominated the city's politics and were poised to take over City Hall. In response, the Ku Klux Klan mounted a successful campaign to annex the city to Los Angeles.

In 1921 Simon Rodia erected his now famous 100-foot towers of found objects, seashells and mortar. He finished it in 1954; it became a national historic landmark 10 years later.

In the summer of 1965, Watts was torn apart by rioting. The looting and burning, which lasted seven days, was worst around 103rd Street and Compton Avenue. Afterwards, elected officials vowed to rebuild the area, Hardly any projects materialized.

Today, with Latinos making up the majority of the population, the old maladies linger. Nearly 50 percent of Watts residents are unemployed, according to 2000 Census data, and 60 percent of adults 25 and older have not graduated from high school. Nearly half the households have a combined income under $25,000.

Some changes have crept over the area. The SBA plans to bolster its loans to small businesses, according to Little, fostering some hope that progress marked by public works can be extended into the private sector.

"There's no economic anything going on right now," said Myran Cotton, a community advocate for Hahn. "That's kind of the problem."