The abandoned luxury towers visible through graffiti

It was a billion-dollar ambition designed to transform a neighborhood.

A trio of glittering skyscrapers would include luxury apartments, a five-star hotel and an open-air arcade of shops and restaurants. Among the amenities: private movie rooms, a two-acre park, pet grooming services and a rooftop pool. A celebrity fitness trainer would help curate a wellness lifestyle for residents.

The vision was called Oceanwide Plaza, and its CEO said it would “redefine the Los Angeles skyline.” A director at the design firm said it would create “a vibrant streetscape.” The website said it would be a place of “rare and unexpected moments.”

All of these statements, some would say, turned out to be true. Just not in the way originally proposed.

Funding for the venture quickly evaporated. The towers went up, but were unfinished and empty. Plagued by financial and legal problems, the square was in a quiet limbo for five years.

Until recently, an underground community put it in the unexpected spotlight.

Now those skyscrapers have become a symbol of street joy, ‘bombarded’ with the work of dozens of graffiti writers and artists. Their aliases cover windows more than forty stories high and visible from nearby highways.

“Everyone is talking about it, of course,” says Ceet Fouad, a French graffiti artist from Hong Kong known for his commissioned murals of cartoon chickens.

“We said it was amazing what happened; we dream of having a place like this. In the middle of Los Angeles? It’s the best promotion you can have.”

The sentiment is of course not universal. Many Angelenos view the graffiti as unconscionable vandalism, encouraging waves of crime. Those who live near it say it has damaged their sense of security. Civic leaders see it as an imminent danger to the neighborhood and to offenders, not to mention a global shame.

Others have admired the work, some have traveled to see the embellished towers for themselves and reflect on what they represent. Perhaps it’s the irony of a city desperate for housing. Or maybe it’s a statement about greed and wasted wealth. Perhaps emblematic of a Los Angeles descending into chaos.

Most would agree that the takeover was cunningly daring.

Vandalism and trespassing had occurred at the square in recent years, city leaders said. But things quickly escalated in late January. New graffiti appeared and a subculture noticed that no one bothered to clean the fresh paint.

“It’s pretty unheard of to paint a skyscraper, so it was like, ‘Oh man, let’s take advantage of this and do it while it lasts,’” said Misteralek, one of five graffiti artists who created the scene in the towers described to The New York Times. They spoke on the condition that only their stage names would be used because their activities were illegal.

Misteralek managed to get in with the early wave. It took him about 40 minutes to leave his alias in red and silver.

“We were so happy to be there because I thought, ‘Tomorrow they’re going to barricade the whole place.’ But then people just kept doing it.”

Social media posts added to the buzz. Few knew anything about the history of the towers. But it seemed strangely easy to get in there.

Crews trudged upstairs together, their backpacks rattling with spray paint. Some dragged gallons of paint and roller brushes. Guards on patrol were easy to avoid.

Inside, they saw loose wires dangling from the ceiling and the rebar exposed. Ladders and buckets littered the concrete floors. The bathtubs were full of water from the rain.

“We got a little lost at first; it’s like entering a small town,” says a graffiti artist named Aker, who has painted his alias twice. Although advice was passed on (bring water, the flight up is killer), he said there was no coordination between artists, just individual ambition.

“You either get in or you don’t get in,” Aker said, “and you don’t want to miss your chance.”

The names of artists and crews spread and the morning sun revealed new additions every day.

Comparisons were made with a former care building in Miami Beach that was “bombed” by graffiti artists in the city for Art Basel in December. But that was much smaller and was reportedly going to be demolished.

Much more attention was paid worldwide to the skyscrapers in Los Angeles, with news helicopters and drones broadcasting the stunning colored monuments.

It helped that the plaza was in a prime location: across the street from Crypto.com Arena, home of the Lakers and Clippers and site of this year’s Grammy Awards.

It is a commercial district with a metro station, with luxury high-rises, an entertainment complex, a conference center and restaurants. On game nights, cars flood the parking lots and street vendors sell hot dogs wrapped in bacon.

It’s not uncommon to see graffiti here, as well as giant murals painted on the side of buildings, including one of Clippers forward Kawhi Leonard by street artist Mr. Brainwash. The painted skyscrapers accelerated everything.

“The biggest conversation is that this has raised the bar – now you have to build a whole building,” says Robert Provenzano, known as CES, an established graffiti artist based in New York City.

CES was recently commissioned to create a digital artwork for the exterior of the Sphere in Las Vegas, which was displayed during the week of the Super Bowl. “I thought I was making some moves, but this overshadows that,” he said.

The square quickly became an illegal playground where people could take photos, light campfires or paint the interior walls.

An Instagram video showed steaks being cooked on a portable stove in the towers. Neighbors reported trucks ramming into fences while thieves made off with copper wire. T-shirts with photos of the square were sold out online.

In recent weeks, more than several dozen people have been arrested on suspicion of trespassing. Four of those people have been charged, according to the Los Angeles City Attorney’s office.

“This is the city’s problem: People do what they want,” said Rodel Corletto, who built the Aladdin Coffee Shop on a nearby corner 40 years ago.

Mr. Corletto, 76, said that over the past 15 years his windows have been smashed and his chairs thrown onto the street. He often feels that there is no longer a story possible. The square, he said, was a bigger example of the lawlessness in the downtown area.

For years, the shiny but unfinished towers were considered a failed business deal, something the financiers and lawyers had to figure out, while pedestrians wondered if anything would ever come of the buildings.

By the time the BASE jumpers managed to leap from the towers in mid-February, city leaders were trying to figure out their role in a private property gone wrong. They had a responsibility, they said, to protect people and to issue an ultimatum: the plaza’s owner, Oceanwide Holdings, a conglomerate headquartered in Beijing, was ordered to secure the property within days.

Messages to Oceanwide went unanswered and the deadline passed without any action. Around the same time, five companies saying they were collectively owed $4.3 million filed a petition to force Oceanwide into bankruptcy. The company has a history of troubled developments, including in New York City and San Francisco. It has been named in numerous lawsuits, including one involving a California construction company that said it was owed nearly $6 million. Oceanwide did not respond to a request for comment.

“The fact that they have just completely abandoned these buildings says more about their irresponsibility than the graffiti artists,” said Kevin de León, the councilor representing the area.

The city set aside $1.1 million to secure the property, including fencing. Mr. de León also said city leaders are exploring estimates for removing graffiti and placing a lien on the property.

“Taxpayers will be reimbursed,” Mr. de León stressed. He said his office was frantically looking for investors and estimated it would cost about $500 million to buy the plaza, along with paying off other debt, and another $1 billion to finish it.

Some residents have openly wondered whether the money could be better used to house the homeless. Or that the offense will be completely curbed. On Wednesday, days after the city began work on the site, authorities announced that two more people had been arrested that morning.

Whatever happens, graffiti artists like Aker say the takeover has magnified and transformed the folly of a company that was hiding in plain sight.

“They failed not only themselves, but the city,” he said. “And this is what happens when things just sit there: graffiti artists are like spiders, we go out and put a web on there.”

Jill Cowan contributed reporting from Los Angeles.