Graffiti News
LA's Graffiti Towers will be erased in under 90 days
Crews began removing graffiti from Oceanwide Plaza on Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles in July 2026. According to the Los Angeles Times, KPC Development Co., the company taking title to the stalled project, ran a one-day test on one tower and concluded the three skyscrapers can be cleared in fewer than 90 days.
A painting that has been part of the Los Angeles skyline for more than two years will be gone inside a single quarter.
Why the paint is coming off now
Removal is the price of the sale. The Los Angeles Times reports that Oceanwide Plaza is changing hands in a $517-million bankruptcy sale tentatively approved by federal judge Deborah J. Saltzman. The City of Los Angeles withdrew its objection once the buyer agreed to begin graffiti removal immediately, even though the sale itself may not formally close for six months.
The approved buyer is a partnership led by Kali P. Chaudhuri, whose KPC Development Co. builds commercial property in California and India, together with Lendlease, the project's original contractor. The 2028 Los Angeles Olympics is driving the schedule.
How an unfinished skyscraper became a canvas
Beijing-based Oceanwide Holdings spent about $1.2 billion on the residential, hotel and retail complex before running out of money in 2019 and halting construction at roughly 60% completion. The buildings then sat empty.
Early in 2024, writers began treating the empty towers as canvases. According to the Los Angeles Times, BASE jumpers parachuted from the heights during the same period, and a performance artist filmed himself crossing a one-inch-wide slackline strung between two of the towers.
John Petty, executive vice president of real estate and construction at KPC, described how the pieces got up there. "They literally rappelled down and did tagging on their way down, taking huge risks," Petty told the Los Angeles Times. He added that it is "really a miracle that no one was killed doing this," and said the removal crews will not be put at similar risk.
Taking it off is its own engineering problem
Three crews, one per tower, will start at the top and work down, according to the Los Angeles Times. Parts of the job require swing stages, the suspended platforms window cleaners use.
The solvent is a biodegradable graffiti remover manufactured in Atwater Village, Los Angeles. Adam Kopcho, president of Urban Restoration Group U.S. Inc., which supplies the product, estimates the job will need more than 1,300 gallons and may need more. The reason is the work itself: much of it, Kopcho said, is dense "filled-in bubble writing that's been baking in the hot sun since 2024." Some writers laid down primer before painting windows, which Petty noted is technically the correct order for a painter and makes removal slower.
The floors are still littered with empty cans of European-made spray paint. Security, once lax, now includes round-the-clock guards, cameras, laser devices and tall metal walls topped with razor wire.
The people erasing it are publishing a book about it
This is the part worth sitting with. Petty said the graffiti has to go, and in the same breath acknowledged the skill in it. "There's some incredible artwork on that building, and we are paying respect to the graffiti artists," he told the Los Angeles Times, describing a planned coffee table book.
The party removing an unsanctioned work is preserving it in print. The long argument over whether graffiti is damage or art sits inside that single sentence, and it does not need settling here. What it does show is that a wall disappearing and a work disappearing are two different events.
What survives is the photograph
Graffiti assumes its own erasure. Buffing is part of the form, and most pieces do not last a season. What makes Oceanwide Plaza unusual is that its scale and address made the erasure newsworthy. Work on towers of 42 and 54 stories was visible to everyone passing Crypto.com Arena.
The practical lesson is small and portable. The wall in your neighbourhood may not be there next month. If you are in Los Angeles, the window is the next 90 days. If you are anywhere else, the job is the same one: photograph the wall you like while it is still up.
Wallscape's map exists to record work against the place it was painted, and the feed shows what other people have logged recently. Much of what went up on Oceanwide Plaza will survive only as photographs. So will a good deal of what is on the wall down your street.