Saint John — Public art lovers in the Port City received another painful blow to one of the crown jewels of the uptown.
A 6-foot-tall metal monkey sculpture at the top of King Street was partially defaced by unknown suspects, despite the extremely cold weather over the past several days. Some ballsy individuals somehow managed to vandalize the brass monkey, which now is missing its testicles.
City works department manager Froid Gonads said that the vandalism was just noticed this morning by city staff doing routine maintenance, and it’s unknown when brass baubles actually went missing.
“It’s a real kick to the cantaloupes, I’ll tell you that,” said Gonads. “That sculpture is one of the gold nuggets of our streetscape, and to see it defaced really jingles my bells. Who knows who took ’em, we’re going to need the Hardy Boys on this one.”
Commissioned by the city in 2016 to celebrate the Chinese “Year of the Monkey,” the public art piece has been popular with tourists since its unveiling. However, the puzzling piece is why only the statue’s testicles were removed.
“Brass is valuable, but there are easier parts of the statue to remove,” said Gonads, shivering in the bitter-cold wind. “We aren’t sure why they went for the juicy fruits.
“Also, we have a security camera pointed at this sculpture and after reviewing all of the footage several times, we can’t see anyone at all who tampered with the statue.
“We’ll find them though,” vowed Gonads. “It’s not like they just froze off and rolled away down King Street.”