Vancouver artist Myfanway MacLeod intended it as a humorous take on a stretch of newly developed waterfront, where the new construction's focus is on sustainability (the humor writes itself in such a place).

It's immediately funny-scary to come upon a pair of 18-foot-tall sparrows with their beady eyes presiding over a series of new condo developments in "Athletes Village" with names like Pinnacle Living and Millennium Water (a billboard reads, "99 homes under $400,000!").

But there's also, for now, an added dimension the artist couldn't have anticipated: The buildings are empty. Only lone condo balcony is decorated (eerily, it's a tableaux of cream-colored patio furniture and a faux-Roman nude sculpture). Pinnacle Living is the pinnacle of loneliness at this point.

The attractively modern buildings present an ethic of green living—the kind of green living the rich can afford. Apparently the rich are not interested, or there just aren't that many of them right now. Two guards sitting in a police K-9 station said this place was packed with Olympic athletes just months ago, but the athletes only slept here. They weren't allowed to use the brand-new appliances that were already installed in the fancy condos, and that were taped closed. When the athletes left, nobody else came.

It's a luxury ghost town, as the friend I visited with said. This was the last large tract of available waterfront near downtown Vancouver, and just two blocks back from the pretty waterfront the zone is still grimy and industrial, abandoned in an entirely different way. One of those older buildings is a large hangar-like space with some broken windows and a sign dangling in the breeze, presumably also leftover from the Olympics, that says, "British Airways." The birds, meanwhile, are grounded. It's like they're waiting, a little disgusted and a little amused. What an environment they've found themselves in.