Earls penguin lookalike usurps Satan statue at Grandview Cut park

A tribute to well-dressed penguins has been installed at a small park site off Clark Drive, on a pedestal in a plaza that became more widely known weeks ago after a provocative devil statue was erected there.

The City of Vancouver was quick to remove the red devil statue, whose anatomical features shocked some SkyTrain passengers and lit up discussions on Twitter.

• MORE |Naked devil statue erected near SkyTrain line

It wasn't clear on Tuesday who placedthe penguin statue which bears a striking similarity to the once-populous Earls Restaurant penguins in the plaza, norwhether the city was also going to remove it.

But what is this abandoned-looking plaza whose pedestal seems to cry out to guerilla artistsandpossible mid-90s relic hoardersto try and fill its void?

In 2006, as The Vancouver Courier reported, a researcher seekingto uncover the origins of the forgotten-looking plaza and pedestal on Clark Drive discovered it once housed a bronze statue of Christopher Columbus.

The statue, called The Dreamer,was erected in 1986 in the plaza, which was one of a dozen or more small park sites that sprung up along the then-new SkyTrainlineand what was intended to be a pedestrian-and-cycle-friendly parkway system.

Years went byand the plaza on the truck-heavy corridor became neglected, until one night in 2000, the Columbus statue was taken.

It reappeared months later in the Italian Garden at Hastings Park.

The pedestal has remained empty except for temporary rogue art installations ever since.

Google Maps: Forgotten memorial plaza