L.A.’s Graffiti Towers Might Have a Buyer—and Everything Else You Need to Know About This Week

• Downtown L.A.’s Oceanwide Plaza, which has become known as the Graffiti Towers for the street art covering its facades, have found a potential buyer. KPC Group and Lendlease are teaming up in a joint venture to acquire the long stalled and bankrupt project for $470 million. (Bloomberg)
• After it was recently revealed that Tom Pritzker had extensive contact with Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire and heir to the Hyatt Foundation has stepped down as its executive chairman. The news is now delaying this year’s Pritzker Architecture Prize announcement, which typically happens the first week of March. (The New York Times)

• The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts—which is supposed to be an independent federal agency, but is stacked with appointees of Donald Trump—approved plans for the $400 million White House ballroom after a single virtual hearing, despite ongoing litigation and public outcry. Here’s how the approval was whisked through. (Bloomberg)

• In 1986, writer and native New Yorker Judith Chernaik had the idea to slip poetry into the ad slots of the London Underground, turning packed train cars into ad hoc poetry galleries. Now, Poems on the Underground reaches millions of commuters, and has even inspired other programs of the like. (The New York Times)

• NYC’s so-called "affordable" housing is proving too expensive for many low-income tenants, with a recent analysis finding that government-subsidized landlords filed more than a third of the city’s 120,000 eviction lawsuits in 2024, largely over unpaid rent, prompting calls for more emergency aid and rent assistance. (Gothamist)

Top photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images