From a parking lot at the corner of 12th and Figueroa streets, Michael Lopez carefully piloted his drone through the skyline around LA Live.

A video screen showed the slow ascent of the drone. It went higher and higher until it formed a shot almost straight out of Ansel Adams. The cloud-covered San Gabriel Mountains. Green shoots that shine from recent rainfall. And an abandoned, half-built skyscraper covered in bright, sparkling graffiti.

Two other towers were hit in the same way,

each

the floor of every building over twenty floors with graffiti on the corners.

The audacity and visibility of the taggers’ achievement, which can be seen from the 10 Freeway and even up to the Sixth Street Bridge, and the fact that the Grammys are being held across the street on Sunday at the Crypto.com Arena, has attracted worldwide attention.

It’s also become LA’s latest Rorschach test.

For civic leaders and professional LA haters, this is the latest evidence that the city is entering a cycle of doom, one more nightmare to add to our dumpster fire of street takeovers, homeless encampments, and mass burglaries. The $1 billion behemoth, called Oceanwide Plaza, was once one of the city’s largest real estate projects, but construction was halted five years ago when the Chinese developer ran out of money.

For Lopez, however, the graffiti-covered buildings, which are supposed to include hotel and retail space as well as luxury condos and apartments, are the latest thing he likes about his hometown.

“It’s beautiful. It’s amazing,” he said. He held his drone and waved to a friend walking past Juan G. The two had traveled from South LA to take in the scene.

“I know the reviews are mixed,” Juan deadpanned, before adding, “I’m sure the people living in the lofts across the street didn’t like looking at them !”

He continued to crane his neck upwards. I rattled off a few tags visible from the Axion on the lower levels. Inktz. Cuts. XN28.

“You’ll never see anything like that again,” Juan continued. ‘The rules are going to change. Security is coming here

difficult

. But to be part of that? To see this up close? It’s a once-in-a-lifetime moment.”

I’m not a fan of graffiti, but I couldn’t help but admire what the taggers had accomplished. Before us stood a monument to the Los Angeles of the moment, which highlighted so many issues, whether consciously or not. Rampant overdevelopment in the city center. Civil corruption. Graffiti that got out of hand.

A place with so much potential, yet so much

desmadre

.

If someone tried this at Art Basel, it would sell for millions. If Banksy were to complete a project of this magnitude, he would be hailed as a genius. Since it involves a bunch of largely anonymous people (two have been arrested and released), polite LA is in turmoil. Even Kevin de Len, the city council member representing downtown, emerged from hiding on Groundhog Day to tell KTLA Channel 5 that Los Angeles should not be an “open canvas.” [for] aspiring artists.”

It’s easy to portray the taggers as vandals out to destroy LA. But the towers are rotten, while LA’s bureaucracy has done little to address the situation.

Instead, the taggers took it upon themselves to turn something ugly into something much more vibrant. Isn’t that LA at its best?

That they used the medium of street art makes their work all the more Angeleno.

The city has felt under siege by graffiti for decades. I used to estimate my driving time out of 10 by following the exits on the highway signs. Now I can do it based on the giant tag of whatever huge warehouse I just passed.

Graffiti in its worst form does nothing to beautify neighborhoods. But what happened

OceanwideOcean view

Plaza was no trace of the second scribble. The ingenuity to methodically bomb everyone

single

corner with dozens of names, is an example of the teamwork we should all strive for. The failure here came from a company that has no money to pay security guards and from a city council that should never have approved this pipe dream project in the first place.

Furthermore, graffiti has been part of the Southern California working class for decades. Even I, a nerdy teenager, scratched “Pharaoh” on windows and wooden desks in eighth grade until security guards at my school in Anaheim took my etching tools. There was something liberating about seeing an art form that has long been demonized as vandalism, as major corporations have appropriated it, taking over such a visible part of downtown.

“All this doesn’t just belong to the developers,” Lopez said. “It belongs to all of us.”

A two-story mural loomed above the parking lot where he and Juan stood

Los Angeles

Clippers superstar

Kawhi Leonard

, street art style. He was surrounded by bromides like “Never Never Give Up” and “Follow Your Dreams” in crawls that tried to emulate graffiti but were as cool as mom jeans.

“They call this art,” Juan said before waving back toward the skyscrapers, “and they don’t

That

?”

I left them and walked to the front of the Crypto.com Arena. There I found

Zack Woodard

taking photos of the highlighted high-rises before asking a friend to capture him with the buildings in the background. High above him hangs a torn, pockmarked white banner that reads ‘

Oceanwide Plaza

”

“Ocean View Plaza”

hung from an unfinished structure.

“When I got here on Wednesday, it was only half done,” said Woodard, who is in town for the Grammys as program director for the GRAMMY Museum in Mississippi. “It’s really impressive to see how quickly they got it done.”

Another friend, Rachel Patterson, kept looking up. “I couldn’t imagine going all the way up there!”

“People say the skyline looks bad,” Woodard said.

responded.

“But it won’t be there forever. It’s nicely done. Plus, street art is part of LA history.”

He asked me what the buildings must have been. When I told him about housing and retail, Woodard scoffed, “Just like everything else in LA.”

As I drove away, I passed the parking lot where I met Lopez and Juan. More and more people gathered around them, all looking up, all with big smiles on their faces.

I smiled too. There’s a lot wrong with Los Angeles, but the ruins that bring happiness to locals and tourists are the least of them.