READ THE LATEST:
Dino-mite! Stolen statue mysteriously returned to Chinatown
Dinosaurs thrived on Earth for 150 million years but lasted just three months on Somerset Street West.
That’s how long it took before hooligans made off with a purple plastic dino, the latest casualty among the colourful “selfie station’ sculptures erected in March by the Chinatown BIA.
The dino disappeared early Friday morning in a theft captured in a high quality colour video taken by a nearby CCTV camera. The video, which has been turned over to Ottawa police, shows three giggling, seemingly intoxicated young women posing with the dino, then breaking it from its base and dragging it away down Somerset Street.
https://twitter.com/OttChinatown/status/1675550855066529792?s=20
The theft occurred at 3:24 a.m. on June 30, according to the video time stamp.
“It’s very sad to see,” said Yukang Li, executive director of the Chinatown BIA. “It’s discouraging. It’s taken the whole community to work together to make this happen in Chinatown. It’s a long process and before long they started to get damaged, vandalized and people are stealing them.”
The purple dinosaur was one of a family of three installed near the corner of Booth Street and Somerset. A green dinosaur is all that remains after a smaller yellow one disappeared earlier this spring.
In all, the BIA installed nine colourful selfie stations. All have suffered either theft or vandalism. Some have been snapped off their base, splattered with paint in the case of the Boonie Bear, a popular Chinese children’s cartoon, or in one particularly gruesome act, decapitated.
https://smartcdn.gprod.postmedia.digital/ottawacitizen/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/139227-1.jpg?quality="90&strip=all&w=576&sig=Ghjx8YAyAADlDYvvrBKRiw 2x" height="750" loading="lazy" src="https://smartcdn.gprod.postmedia.digital/ottawacitizen/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/139227-1.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=288&sig=95XNPrjyVwUBZCUnpiC3NA" width="1000"/>
A trio of colourful panda bears has been stolen completely.
“The pandas don’t even exist anymore,” Li said.
See coverage of the statues, before the vandalism:
Why have cartoon-like statues of pandas, bunnies and bears appeared in Ottawa’s Chinatown?
Despite the mischief, the sculptures have been extremely popular, he said.
“People do love them. Lots of people have been taking pictures with them. That’s the whole purpose — to add some interest to our street and to attract people to visit Chinatown. And for residents of the area, who hope that new artwork would bring some colourfulness to the community and to create some interesting spots.”
The sculptures are made of fibreglass and imported from China. They’re bolted to concrete pads. In all the BIA spent $200,000 on the selfie stations and two sculptures at either end of the street welcoming visitors to Chinatown. The funding came from the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario.
Will they be replaced?
“To be honest, I don’t have an idea,” Li said. “I want to. But it’s very costly, in financial resources and in terms of time to have them installed. All the statues were imported from China and that’s expensive and takes a lot of time.
I do want to replace them with something nice, but until we get some other funding. The BIA has a very limited budget. We just don’t have the financial means to replace them and do another round of installations.”
Other sculptures feature characters from the Journey to the West; yellow new year bunnies in red Chinese robes; blue dogs; yellow deer; some tiny monkeys; a quartet of pink jazz musicians and the now-missing panda trio. The larger statues are heavy: An adult would have trouble carrying one alone, Li said. The sculptures were chosen to reflect Chinese culture, family-values, child-friendliness, inclusivity and colourfulness.
No one from Ottawa police was available to comment on the theft Monday.
https://smartcdn.gprod.postmedia.digital/ottawacitizen/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/139227-e1688413804388.jpg?quality="90&strip=all&w=576&sig=A6yv5MjEyqAOc_oiUd7XOQ 2x" height="537" loading="lazy" src="https://smartcdn.gprod.postmedia.digital/ottawacitizen/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/139227-e1688413804388.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=288&sig=rbxIiR7X1eMCncWehUAyBw" width="992"/>
Post a Comment