![]() ![]() The 7.6-feet monument depicts Columbus as a young explorer helming a rather small ship at his feet. The statue was commissioned with funds from the New York City Works Progress Administration Art Project (WPA). Members of the Italian American community celebrating Columbus Day in 2013 at the Columbus Tarinalge in Astoria, New York (Costa Constantinides/ Flickr) Columbus Square, AstoriaĪt Columbus Triangle between Astoria Boulevard, Hoyt Avenue, and 31st Street stands a modern statute of the conquer, designed by Angelo Racioppi in 1941. The commission adopted an “additive approach,” which focused on new monuments and “fostering dialogue” with educational programs that historically contextualize the statue. In January of 2018, the advisory commission released its recommendation, which acknowledged the violent history that the Columbus statue represents, but recommended to keep it. Marion Sims in Central Park (the latter of which has since been torn down). ![]() This campaign also targeted the equestrian statue of Theodore Roosevelt outside the American Museum of Natural History and the monument to J. In 2017, de Blasio assembled the Mayoral Advisory Commission on City Art, Monuments, and Markers in response to calls to remove the Columbus Circle statue. Some have proposed honoring Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two immigrant anarchists who were executed by electric chair in a Boston prison after a controversial murder trial in 1920. Irving’s sentimental account portrays Columbus as a heroic figure who bravely ventured into the “New World.”īut now, new generations of Italian Americans are contemplating other historical figures to replace the genocidal colonialist. Historians attribute the resurrection of Columbus’s image, who died a disgraced figure after being arrested for mistreatment of the Taíno population, to author Washington Irving’s fictionalized 1828 biography, A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus. These words allude to the Italian American community’s desire for a heroic figure as a symbol of ethnic pride after decades of degradation, discrimination, and violent treatment as new immigrants in the country.Ī year earlier, 11 Italian Americans who had been acquitted of murder were lynched in New Orleans by a mob of thousands. It was one of the largest mass lynchings in American history.įollowing this traumatic event, Italian immigrants sought recognition in their new country by embracing the myth of Columbus, who was already celebrated as a national symbol, as evidenced by a large number of districts, cities, and squares named after him (including Columbia University in New York), and the adoption of “Columbia” as a personification of the United States. Barsotti donated more than half of the $20,000 needed for the sculpture (∼$563,503 in today’s terms) and raised the rest from members of the community.Īn inscription on the pedestal reads: “To Christopher Columbus / the Italians resident in America, / scoffed at before, / during the voyage, menaced, / after it, chained, / as generous as oppressed, / to the world he gave a world.” The sculpture, partially made in Rome, was the initiative of Carlo Barsotti, an Italian American businessman and publisher of the Il Progresso Italo Americano newspaper, the first Italian language daily newspaper in New York. On the pedestal, bronze reliefs depict Colombus’s voyages and landfall in the Caribbean (Columbus never actually stepped foot on mainland North America). ![]() The Christopher Columbus statue in Columbus Circle, Manhattan (Wikimedia Commons)Īn angel holding a globe is featured below the column. And it was in that year that President Benjamin Harrison proclaimed Columbus Day a national holiday. It was one of three monuments that were planned to mark the occasion. Columbus Circle, Manhattanĭesigned by Italian sculptor Gaetano Russo, the monument was unveiled ceremoniously on October 13, 1892, as part of the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s voyage across the Atlantic from Spain in 1492. The following is a list of all of NYC’s Columbus statues, how they came to be, and how they were challenged over the years. “And for that reason, I support it.” The statue is now guarded by NYPD officers. “The statue has come to represent and signify appreciation for the Italian American contribution to New York,” Cuomo said in a recent press briefing. Louis, Missouri removed a 140-year-old Columbus statue on its premises yesterday, June 16, saying the decision was taken to “ensure a safe, inclusive and pleasant environment for park visitors and team members alike.”īut in New York, the controversial monument at Columbus Circle enjoys the support and protection of the city and state’s two top officials, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo. These New York initiatives happen as Columbus statutes across the country are being torn down, defaced, and beheaded.
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