Los Angeles Graffiti Towers / Oceanwide Plaza

Submission 2,163

Overview

The Los Angeles Graffiti Towers refers to three abandoned skyscraper buildings in Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) called Oceanwide Plaza, which gained media coverage in early 2024 when the building was covered with graffiti. Oceanwide Plaza was meant to be luxury condos and apartments but the construction was abandoned in 2019. The vandalism of the buildings, located next to the Crypto.com Arena, inspired mass discourse and controversy. Many online saw the buildings as a symbol of wealth disparity and classism. Others likened the building to an eyesore and criticized the graffiti artists perpetuating it. Multiple viral videos and posts about the towers surfaced on social media platforms like Twitter / X, TikTok and Instagram, among others, including drone footage, documentation of the inside of the building and documentation of tagging the building's outside windows posted by the graffiti artists.

Background

The construction of Oceanwide Plaza in Downtown L.A. started in 2015. Oceanwide Holdings Co., the developer of the project, is a Chinese company based in Beijing. The construction of Oceanwide Plaza was halted in 2019, mostly due to a trade war between China and the United States that inspired Beijing to impose capital control over international construction projects. In turn, Oceanwide Plaza was left in limbo as its American contractors sought an American loan — a difficult task given that construction had already started. At the time of its halt, the buildings had already cost roughly $860 million of the estimated $2 billion project.^[1]^[2]^[3]

In 2023, Oceanwide Holdings Co. officially put the buildings on the selling block.^[3]

By 2024, no company had bought Oceanwide Plaza. In January and February 2024, news outlets like the Los Angeles Times reported that graffiti artists started vandalizing the buildings by tagging their names on the windows.^[4]

Online Reactions

Posts on X^[5] about Oceanwide Plaza went viral in late January and February 2024, inspiring reactions and memes. For instance, on February 5th, 2024, X^[6] user @jake_gotta tweeted, "Am I the only one who thinks it’s sick as hell to have a graffiti skyscraper in downtown LA," gaining over 17,000 likes in four days (shown below, left).

In contrast, others portrayed anger, such as X^[7] user @FilmThePoliceLA on February 6th, 2024, who portrayed frustration over the police using helicopters to shine lights on the building, gaining over 15,000 likes in three days (shown below, right).

On TikTok, videos of the towers went viral, such as TikToker^[8] @thedopeacademy's "drone footage" video uploaded on February 6th, 2024, gaining over 26.5 million plays and 3.4 million likes in three days (shown below, left).

During the same timeframe, graffiti artists who were tagging the building posted videos and images on TikTok. For instance, on February 8th, 2024, TikToker^[9] @dudeitsallfrogsh1t posted a video of seemingly himself tagging one of the buildings and a helicopter singing a light on him, earning over 492,400 plays and 86,800 likes in one day (shown below, right).