Graffiti remained on the windows of an abandoned $1 billion skyscraper on South Figueroa street in Downtown Los Angeles for its third day on Friday. Drone footage captured by CBS photojournalist John Schreiber Wednesday revealed tags and phrases such as “set the pace” and “SINKOE,” on windows of at least 27 floors.
The skyscraper is part of Oceanwide Plaza, a luxury mixed-use project that has remained in limbo since 2019 after a Beijing-based developer could no longer pay for its construction. The graffitied skyscraper is also across the street from the Crypto.com Arena, the site of the Grammy Awards this Sunday.
Los Angeles Police Department officers responded to a call early Wednesday morning night reporting the vandalism and arrested two suspects in relation to the graffiti before later releasing them after they received citations for trespassing, according to a press release.
LAPD Central division wrote that it was meeting with property management of the building and representatives from Council District 14 to coordinate security measures in a statement posted to X, formerly known as Twitter, the next day. LAPD responded to another call Thursday afternoon in which suspects fled the scene by car.
“As much as people are entitled to not like what the graffiti writers do, I would encourage people to respect the effort to use the space that nobody else seems to be caring about right now,” said Stefano Bloch, an L.A. native and former graffiti tagger who is a professor of geography at the University of Arizona, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times published Thursday.