When George Sugarman's 36-foot-tall untitled aluminum sculpture was commissioned by North Carolina National Bank (NCNB) in 1988, no one could have imagined the colorful reputation it would earn. Installed in a shallow fountain outside Rivergate Tower at the corner of Kennedy Boulevard and Ashley Drive, the abstract work stood there for 22 years, becoming one of downtown Tampa's most recognizable—and most polarizing—landmarks.

Some admired it as a bold piece of modern art. Others ridiculed it. In 1990, Tampa Tribune columnist Steve Otto, writing about public art at USF, jokingly dubbed the sculpture the "Exploding Chicken." The nickname struck a chord, and for decades afterward, that's what many locals still call it.

When new owners American Capital Partners purchased the beer-can-shaped tower, they donated the sculpture to the city, which quickly hid it in a storage warehouse at Gulf Marine Repair Corp, where it stayed for three years. By July 2012, a new pedestal, sans the fountain, had been created in a traffic circle just north of the Florida Aquarium on Channelside Drive to place the structure. However, with the Republican National Convention coming to town in August of that year, installation was delayed, reportedly due to security concerns about the sculpture becoming a target for convention protesters. In late 2012, Otto lobbied the city for its promised return and by mid-May 2013, the work had been reconstructed in its current resting place, sandblasted and repainted.

These days, the bird—or whatever you think it is—keeps watch over the Channel District, welcoming thousands of cruise passengers each year and continuing its decades-long mission of sparking arguments over whether it's art, poultry, or a collapsed McDonald's. It will soon be seen by thousands more visitors from the sky, as its perch sits adjacent to a lot that will hold the Tampa WOW! (Wheel Over Water), a planned 250-foot-tall, $20 million observation Ferris wheel.

© Chip Weiner. All rights reserved