By Jon Regardie for The Eastsider
Originally published Feb. 26, 2025
The Dodgers’ World Series victory last fall brought jubilation to Los Angeles. It also brought something else to Echo Park: copious graffiti. After the Blue recorded the final out against the Yankees on Oct. 30, the celebrating crowds included scofflaws who tagged a Bank of America branch, other neighborhood businesses, and Metro buses (one was even torched).
Anyone who has lived on the Eastside for a while knows that graffiti is common, and it doesn’t take a championship to get vandals spray painting. Last year, Echo Park recorded 8,101 graffiti clean-ups, according to MyLA311 service request data. That was the 10th highest count of neighborhoods in Los Angeles, according to Crosstown.
Three Eastside neighborhoods ranked in the top 10, with Boyle Heights leading the list with 29,423 clean-ups in 2024. East Hollywood had the fifth-highest total.
The city’s Office of Community Beautification (OCB, and yes, there is such a thing) aims to paint over graffiti within 72 hours of it being reported. The clean-up count includes calls placed to the MyLA311 system, as well as tags that abatement crews working with the OCB see and proactively paint over.
Reports of graffiti citywide declined in 2024, with the 317,372 reports being about 9,400 fewer than the previous year. Graffiti had increased during the pandemic, peaking at 347,000 reports in 2021.
However, trends in Eastside communities do not necessarily follow the citywide pattern. In 2021, there were 21,783 clean-ups in Boyle Heights. The figure has climbed each year since then. Lincoln Heights saw a drop from 2021 to 2022, but calls rose in the last two years.
This chart shows the four-year trend in the five Eastside neighborhoods with the most graffiti reports in 2024.
Some graffiti in Los Angeles is gang-related. Other times, it is the product of tagging crews or bored teens. The OCB notes that registered murals get a special coating that can withstand the graffiti removal process. That came into play last year in Cypress Park, when Joe Ibarra helped restorethe 200-foot-long “Vistas of Harmony” mural, which taggers had vandalized.
Jon Regardie is a veteran Los Angeles reporter, editor and columnist. @JonRegardie.
