Tom Otterness's sculptures are generally cartoonish, satirical pokes at class issues: Fat men in suits sit on bags of money and eat oil trucks; an anthropomorphic house in a skirt and high heels marries a coin. And it's fairly clear that The Miser is intended to push the same buttons: A giant man dressed like the Monopoly mascot clutches a half-dozen giant coins to his chest. He's handing one coin to a tiny man dressed like a proletarian. The coin dwarfs the worker, and the two stand atop a globe held aloft by four smaller versions of the wealthy man. It's not a complex statement: The rich get richer, etc.

The problem with the piece is in its context: It stands in front of the Grand Hyatt, one of the most expensive hotels in the city, and next to the ridiculously extravagant Ruth's Chris Steak House chain restaurant. Placing the statue here makes it a celebration of hoarding wealth, of withholding charity from the poor and even rubbing their faces in the luxury. The aggravating combination of weak satire and poor location makes this the worst statue in Seattle.