The plaza was formerly known as Metro Square but was renamed in April 2011 by a unanimous Toronto City Council vote to honour the late civic leader David Pecaut.

[1][2] The public space features Canadian sculptor Bernie Miller's The Poet, The Fever Hospital, a 1992 piece made up of galvanized steel, bronze, granite, and marble.

The title refers to the poet Isabella Valancy Crawford, who stayed for a brief time in a house that was demolished for the construction of Metro Hall at the southeast corner of King and John Streets.

[4] Also located at the southwestern part of the square is Jaan Poldaas' Surface Design for Tampered Windscreens (1992), a sculpture composed of tempered glass screens which functions as a windbreak.

Cynthia Short's Remembered Sustenance (1992) is piece composed of 19 small and generic bronze animals on the grass just off the sidewalk on Wellington Street West.