Source: Joshua Bickel, The Columbus Dispatch
Through the Reimagining Columbus project, funded by the Mellon Foundation’s Monuments Project, the City of Columbus, Ohio is reckoning with how its shared history and values should be reflected through public art, monuments, and symbols. In particular, residents are being invited to share their thoughts regarding a 20-foot, 3.5-ton bronze statue of the city’s namesake, Christopher Columbus, which was gifted to Columbus as a gesture of friendship by its first sister city Genoa, Italy in 1955. The statue graced the grounds of City Hall for 65 years before being removed in July 2020, in response to protests stemming from George Floyd’s murder by police in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The statue will remain in storage as the Reimagining Columbus project proceeds; city leadership has indicated it will not return to City Hall. The project’s goals are to determine the future disposition of the statue and to develop a new public art plan for City Hall campus.
The City of Columbus is hardly the only place grappling with what to do about monuments depicting problematic historic tropes and figures. Dozens of U.S. cities have assessed or removed monuments exalting Christopher
Columbus, the Confederacy, and the subjugation of Native and Black Americans since the massacre of nine Black parishioners at Charleston, South Carolina’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in 2015. In more than 40 cities, Christopher Columbus statues became a flashpoint for debate between Indigenous Americans, for whom Columbus symbolizes colonialism and genocide, and Italian-Americans, for whom he represents cultural pride and legitimacy in a country that initially did not welcome them. And, years later, the debate rages on. Many Christopher Columbus sites and statues remain in flux as of 2024, as court proceedings and administrative processes play out, monuments find new homes (or don’t), and artwork to replace removed statues is developed.
This document presents case studies from 12 U.S. communities in addition to Columbus, Ohio that have confronted their Christopher Columbus statue(s) in recent years, demonstrating the range of strategies they employed and the outcomes they have experienced to date. It is not an exhaustive list of all such communities; rather, the following were selected to represent the diverse geographies and outcomes associated
with this divisive topic. They are listed here in alphabetical order. Each profile includes information about the statue; why it was installed and why it was assessed and/or removed; what happened next; its current disposition; if a review commission was established to evaluate monuments in the city and, if so, its findings; demographic information; and photographs of the statue before and, when possible, after removal.
Because the stories of these statues, like that of the Christopher Columbus statue in Columbus, have yet to be fully written, these case studies should be regarded as snapshots in time—a time several years out from the removal or assessment of many Christopher Columbus statues, when the aftermath of those actions has become more apparent…but questions persist. Will these monuments stay buried in storage, or find new homes elsewhere? How much freedom do cities really have to remove controversial monuments? How will Christopher Columbus’s story be understood going forward? What new histories will be revealed in the public art that emerges from this moment? Can public art help reconcile the pain suffered by both the Italian American and Indigenous American communities? The places
profiled here have taken bold steps towards answering these questions, but the path to resolving them is proving as messy as history itself. Now is a good time to pause and reflect on what has been learned, recommit to the conversation, and continue reimagining civic
The Statue
The 14’ Carrara marble statue by Mauro Bigarani was erected at Columbus Piazza in Baltimore’s Little Italy neighborhood in 1984. It is owned by the Italian American Organizations United (IAOU).
Impetus for Installation
IAOU raised money for the sculpture to adorn a new plaza welcoming people to the Little Italy neighborhood.
Cause of Removal
In July 2020, protesters vandalized and forcibly removed the statue and threw it into Baltimore’s Inner Harbor as part of protests over George Floyd’s murder.
IAOU had the sculpture retrieved from the harbor and commissioned a replica when the original was too badly damaged to repair—paid for, in part, with a National Endowment for the Humanities grant more commonly used to restore monuments damaged during natural disasters. Neither the replica nor broken pieces of the original are currently on display, though IAOU plans to showcase them alongside one another when an appropriate site is identified. The statue will not return to the city’s care,
I support Baltimore’s ItalianAmerican community and Baltimore’s Indigenous community. I cannot, however, support Columbus.
“ ”
~Brandon Scott Mayor of Baltimore
given concerns that a similar fate would befall it. In its place at Columbus Piazza—which will be renamed Piazza Little Italy—a statue of an anonymous Italian immigrant is to be erected.
Review Commission
None. As the sculpture is privately owned by the IAOU, that organization is solely responsible for its eventual disposition (unless it is again placed on public property).
Current Disposition
The statue remains in storage.
Baltimore’s Christopher Columbus statue was forcibly removed by protesters and thrown into the harbor. Though it was retrieved and restored, it will not be reinstalled on city property.
¹ People who reported two or more of the following: White, Black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, or Some Other Race.
² The concept of race is separate from the concept of Hispanic origin. People who identify their origin as Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish may be of any race.
³ People who responded “No, not Spanish/Hispanic/Latino” and who reported “White” as their only entry in the race question.
Citations: 2020 Census / Quote / Monument details / Monument protest / Monument repair / Future plans
The 6’ marble statue was carved by a group of sculptors in Carrara, Italy and erected in Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park in 1979. It was owned by the City of Boston and is now owned by the Archdiocese of Boston Chapter of the Knights of Columbus.
A one-man “Friends of the Christopher Columbus Committee” organized by so-called “superpatriot” and activist Arthur Stivaletta (aka, Mr. Wake Up America) conceived of the statue and bypassed the city’s formal approval processes to get it quickly installed at Waterfront Park. He was supported in this effort by the Mayor, who was seeking reelection and wanted to curry favor with Boston’s Italian-American community in advance of the vote.
Due to ongoing vandalism and the significant damage caused by its beheading, the city removed the statue and placed it in storage.
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said the city would repair the statue and donate it to the Knights of Columbus to install at their affordable housing unit on 41 Margin Street. The plan is to install new public art to honor North End’s Italian immigrants at the original site.
Our parents have told us stories about the level of discrimination they faced and the fear that what was worked so hard for might be lost, but this is not unique to Italians, being discriminated against. We unfortunately allied ourselves with a white supremacist in our attempts to be recognized in this country.
~Heather Leavell Co-founder,
Italian Americans for Indigenous Peoples’ Day
In 2018, the Boston Art Commission commissioned “An Opportunity for Change,” a report on how cities nationwide have assessed and addressed harm and inequities in their public art collections. The report focused on six pieces within the City of Boston, including its Christopher Columbus statue; it offered many possible treatments of it but no official recommendation. The Commission revisited the disposition of this statue when it was vandalized during the protests of 2020, with a series of public meetings to collect community feedback regarding its future.
It is unclear whether the statue remains in storage or has been installed at its intended new home.
The City of Boston removed the statue at Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park after it was damaged by protesters. Due to ongoing dissent and vandalism, Boston donated the statue to the local Knights of Columbus organization rather than reinstall it.
Citations: 2020 Census / Quote / Monument details / Monument history / Arthur Stivaletta / An Opportunity for Change / Future plans
The bronze statue by Moses Ezekiel was erected in Arrigo Park in 1892. 7’ The bronze statue by Richard Henry Park was added to Drake Fountain in 1892. The bronze statue by Carlo Brioschi was erected in Grant Park in 1933. All three are owned by the City of Chicago.
Impetus for Installation
The Arrigo Park statue was created for the Columbian Exposition Chicago World’s Fair. The Drake Fountain statue was gifted to the city by hotelier John Drake as part of a fountain he commissioned to ensure people in The Loop could access chilled drinking water. The Grant Park Statue was built for the 1933 Century of Progress Chicago World Fair, in conjunction with an Italian Day.
All three Christopher Columbus statues were removed in 2020 during protests following the murder of George Floyd, at which protesters attempted to bring down the Grant Park statue and injuries arose from clashes with the police.
Conversations between the city and Chicago’s Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans are ongoing, and the statues’ futures remain uncertain. In the meantime, the Mellon Foundation has provided Chicago with funds for eight additional statues, including one that
...maybe there’s a particular type of ritual that’s invented when something needs to be taken down that people are called all over the city to come to this event. Maybe its history is spoken. Maybe its untruths are spoken; maybe its truth is spoken. And maybe it’s taken down in a particular way that preserves the history of how it got banned in the first place...And I think that’s one place that artists can come together with communities to invent new ways to actually take things down.
~Folayemi Wilson CMP Advisory Committee member
depicts Black victims of police brutality, to help increase the diversity of representation within the city’s collection.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot initiated the Chicago Monuments Project (CMP), a partnership between the city’s Parks Department and Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, alongside Chicago Public Schools, to assess the city’s monuments, memorials, and other art. CMP selected 41 of the city’s 500+ monuments for review and community conversation, including the Christopher Columbus statues that were ultimately recommended for permanent removal.
The statues remain in storage.
The City of Chicago removed its three Christopher Columbus statues during the protests of 2020, and their futures remain unknown. In the meantime, the city has received funding to install eight new monuments, including one that honors victims of police brutality.
Citations: 2020 Census / Quote / Drake Fountain monument details / Grant Park monument details / Arrigo Park monument details / Monument status / New monuments / Commission report
The 20’ bronze statue by Edoardo Alfieri was cast at the Micheluccio Foundry in Pistoia, Italy and erected at Columbus’s City Hall in 1955. It is owned by the City of Columbus, Ohio.
The statue was a gift of friendship from Genoa, Italy to the City of Columbus that marked the beginning of their Sister Cities relationship. The designation was made official on Columbus Day 1955, when the statue was dedicated. Genoa was Columbus’s first Sister City.
Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther ordered the statues removed after years of protest and an incident of vandalism during the protests over George Floyd’s murder in June 2020.
A lawsuit to halt the statue’s removal was dismissed, as city code gave the Mayor (through the Director of Facilities Management) authority to remove the statue. In 2023, the city received funding from the Mellon Foundation’s Monuments Project for Reimagining Columbus, a 2-year project to collectively reimagine how monuments and public artwork in the city convey its history and identity. This project will provide input into the Christopher Columbus statue’s future disposition and what replaces it at City Hall.
For many people in our community, the statue represents patriarchy, oppression and divisiveness. That does not represent our great city, and we will no longer live in the shadow of our ugly past.
~Andrew Ginther Mayor of Columbus
After a community engagement process, Reimagining Columbus’s advisory committee will draft a public art plan for the grounds of City Hall and recommendations for the Christopher Columbus statue. The Reimagining Columbus advisory board includes city officials, a local arts and culture planning firm, Indigenous design professionals, college professors, historians, cultural consultants, and others. Their final report and designs will be delivered in 2025.
The statue remains in storage.
The City of Columbus’s Mayor ordered the city’s namesake statue removed in the early morning hours of July 1, 2020. The massive statue was taken from its pedestal and placed in storage, where it remains. It has not yet been replaced.
Citations: 2020 Census / Quote / Monument details / Monument vandalism / Lawsuit / Reimagining Columbus
The bronze statue by Houston artist Joe Incrapera was erected in Bell Park in 1992. It was formerly owned by the City of Houston and is now owned by the artist.
Impetus for Installation
The statue was commissioned by the Federation of Italian American Organizations of Greater Houston and the Italian Cultural Community Center in honor of the 500-year anniversary of Columbus’s landing in the Americas.
Upon several instances of vandalism, and in consideration of findings from the Confederate Items Task Force, the Directors of the Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs and the Houston Parks and Recreation Department recommended that City Council vote to officially remove the Christopher Columbus statue from its collection.
Both the original donors and the artist agreed that the statue should be removed and, in September 2021, the city signed a formal agreement with Joe Incrapera to return the statue to his possession.
Good. History belongs in a museum. Reverence belongs in a statue. He is history, but he should not be revered.
~u/Misallocated Racism, Reddit post
In 2017, Mayor Sylvester Turner created a Confederate Items Task Force to consider how to deal with its Confederate monuments. While this commission did not specifically assess the Christopher Columbus statue, its recommendations included that the City of Houston not display figures associated with perpetuating slavery, which provided grounds for its eventual removal.
The statue was returned to its artist, whose plans for it are unknown.
The City of Houston had been engaged in a conversation around its problematic statues for several years before protesters vandalized the Christopher Columbus statue in Bell Park, forcing its removal. The city then orchestrated a return of the statue to its artist, who is still alive and residing in the Houston area.
Citations: 2020 Census / Quote / Monument details / Monument removal / Commission report / Artist agreement
The marble statue and pedestal with bronze bas-relief panels by Giuseppe Ciochetti was erected in Washington Park (now Harriet Tubman Square) in 1927. It is owned by the City of Newark.
Italian-American businessman John DiBiase, who founded the Verdi Society and Newark’s Columbus Day celebration, decided that an annual parade was insufficient tribute to Columbus’s and Italian-Americans’ many contributions to American life. The Verdi Society raised private donations for a Christopher Columbus statue to gift to the city for year-round appreciation.
The City of Newark removed the statue to prevent it from being toppled and causing harm during the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020. There was no prior notice and no public hearing regarding the statue’s removal.
Newark approved a 20-year loan of the statue to St. Lucy’s Church, with the option to extend the arrangement after that time. Washington Park, the statue’s former site, was renamed Harriet Tubman Square and now features “Shadow of a Face,” a monument to the Underground Railroad hero Harriet Tubman.
They came in the middle of the night and removed it. I don’t know the legalities and how they had the authority to do that without any due process...I wish [the mayor] had used a more diplomatic method like most communities do.
~Salvatore Benvenuti UNICO National Executive Director
None. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka’s administration unilaterally removed the statue and released a call for artists to design a Harriet Tubman monument in its place. A state historic preservation panel rejected artist/architect Nina Cooke John’s original proposal for Harriet Tubman Square, which is in a historic district, saying the site should feature both a Tubman statue and a Columbus statue. The panel was ultimately overruled by a state commissioner.
The statue lies prone on the grounds of St. Lucy’s Church until a pedestal for it can be built, at which point it will be re-erected.
Source: NewarkHistory.com
Newark’s Christopher Columbus statue was replaced with a monument to Harriet Tubman. It will, however, find new life at St. Lucy’s Church when a pedestal for it can be built.
Citations: 2020 Census / Quote / Monument details / Monument history / Harriet Tubman Square history / Future plans
The marble statue by Gaetano Russo was erected in the center of Columbus Circle in 1892. It is owned by the City of New York.
In honor of the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s landing in the Americas, ItalianAmericans raised money and dedicated their labor to install this statue as a symbol of pride, at a time when Italians faced widespread discrimination and were not represented in New York City’s public spaces.
Mayor Bill de Blasio convened the Mayoral Advisory Commission on City Art, Monuments, and Markers in 2017, in response to the deadly white nationalist protest in Charlottesville and nationwide calls to remove monuments celebrating the confederacy. The commission’s charge was “to develop nonbinding recommendations on how the City should address City-owned monuments and markers on City property, particularly those that are subject to sustained negative public reaction or may be viewed as inconsistent with the values of New York City.” Its report was issued in January 2018.
I think that historically we’re at an inflection point in American history where we need to reconcile our history and our future and monuments, memorials, markers are the manifestation of our culture and our identity as a people.
~Darren Walker President, Ford Foundation Co-Chair,
Commission on City Art, Monuments, and Markers
Because the general public was not yet on board with permanent removal of the statue, the commission instead recommended that local institutions undertake community education about Christopher Columbus and that the city focus on adding monuments throughout the city to diversify its collection, with the intention of revisiting the subject of this particular statue at a later date.
The statue is still standing in its original location.
Today, New York City’s Columbus Circle, with its centerpiece Christopher Columbus statue, looks much as it did at the time of the statue’s installation in 1892.
Citations: 2020 Census / Quote / Monument details / Commission report
The obelisk of unknown material, by an unknown artist, featured a bas relief of Columbus’s face and words honoring him; it was erected in 1992 at the site of the Norwich Free Academy. It is owned by the Norwich Italian Heritage & Cultural Community.
Members of Norwich’s Italian American community raised money for the statue in honor of the 500-year anniversary of Columbus’s landing in the Americas.
The Norwich Italian Heritage & Cultural Community met in response to national protests over Christopher Columbus statues and a local petition to change their monument. They decided to proactively alter it to refocus attention from Columbus to the Italian American community members who immigrated to this country and contributed positively to Norwich over the years.
Artists worked to replace the relief of Columbus’s face and words honoring him with a flag plaque and words honoring Norwich’s Italian immigrants. The updated monument was unveiled and dedicated in a small ceremony in November 2020.
Norwich’s Italian Community is very sensitive to the feelings of the various groups that are offended by monuments honoring Columbus. We are listening, we have heard the protests, and we will act.
”
~Members of the Italian Heritage Cultural Committee
We decided to be proactive. We didn’t want to go to the extremes that we’ve seen all around. It’s not about Christopher Columbus. It’s about our parents and grandparents. They had to go through all of what you just said and I don’t like bigotry or violence no matter what race, color, or creed you are.
~Frank Jacarusso President of the Italian Heritage Cultural Committee
None. The statue is privately owned and the City of Norwich was not involved in determining its treatment.
The altered obelisk remains in place.
Sculptors removed Columbus’s visage and words in his honor from the Italian heritage obelisk in Norwich, replacing it with a message of broader appeal.
Citations: 2020 Census / Quote 1 / Quote 2 / Monument rededication
The 10’ Italian Ravazzoni marble statue by Emanuele Caroni was erected in Fairmount Park in 1876. It is owned by the city.
Impetus
The Columbus Monument Association donated the statue to the city for its Centennial Exposition in 1876; it was relocated from Exposition grounds at Fairmount Park to Marconi Plaza for Philadelphia’s bicentennial celebration in 1976.
The Philadelphia Historical Commission recommended removing the statue after the George Floyd protests to ensure public safety and prevent vandalism and the Philadelphia Art Commission agreed, issuing an order for the city to do so in August 2020.
Legal challenges to the Commission’s ruling quickly emerged, and the city chose to box the statue in place until these challenges worked through the system. In December 2022, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania ruled that Philadelphia has “a fiduciary duty to preserve that statue,” and that it must remove the box encasing it. The ruling further stated the city could add a plaque to the statue if it disagrees with its message. The Friends of Marconi Plaza organization subsequently filed
The Christopher Columbus statue has been a source of controversy in Philadelphia and across our country. Many are calling for the removal of the statue. The City understands their concerns and will be initiating a process for the Art Commission to review the statue, its location, and its appropriateness in a public park. We are committed to listening to all and moving forward in the best way to heal our deep divides. The boxing is to preserve the statue while the Art Commission process is followed. No decision has been made on whether the City will remove the statue.
~Sign on box obscuring the statue (2020–2022)
suit against the Mayor and members of the city’s Historical Commission for attempting to abuse the legal process in order to remove the statue. This lawsuit is pending.
Review Commission
None.
The statue remains in place and unboxed at Marconi Plaza.
The City of Philadelphia lost a court case to remove their Christopher Columbus statue in 2022. The box that had been protecting it during the legal process was thereafter removed.
Citations: 2020 Census / Quote / Monument details / Sign text / Court findings / City sued
The 6.6’ replica bronze statue by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi (sculptor of the Statue of Liberty) was erected in Columbus Square in 1893. It was formerly owned by the City of Providence and is now owned by the town of Johnston.
The statue was originally cast in silver for the World’s Columbian Exhibition in Chicago by the Providence-based Gorham Manufacturing Company. Afterwards, it was melted down to create more profitable goods, but Gorham Company cast a bronze replica of the piece in commemoration of their successful contribution to the World’s Fair. The Elmwood Association, a civic association near the Gorham plant, purchased this statue and donated it to the city.
The city’s Special Committee for the Review of Commemorative Works voted to remove the Christopher Columbus statue in 2020, upon instances of protest and vandalism, and keep it in storage until a decision about its disposition could be reached.
Three years after the statue was removed and placed in storage, it was purchased for approximately $50,000 by former Providence
The recommended bidder would keep the statue local, would add important and necessary historical context, and would allow the next generation of folks to both understand the full legacy of Christopher Columbus, but also acknowledges and recognizes the point of pride that Italian Americans have in Christopher Columbus.
“ ”
~Brett Smiley Providence Mayor
Mayor Joseph Paolino Jr., who then donated it to the town of Johnston. Money from the sale is to benefit the Elmwood neighborhood by funding a new installation where the statue once stood.
Mayor Jorge Elorza, City Council, and the City of Providence’s Department of Art, Culture + Tourism established a Special Committee for the Review of Commemorative Works in November 2019, based on policy recommendations from the Art in City Life Plan: A Public Art Initiative for the City of Providence, the city’s first comprehensive plan for public art (adopted 2018).
The statue was re-erected in Johnston War Memorial Park, about nine miles from Providence, in the heavily Italian-American town of Johnston, Rhode Island.
The City of Providence removed their Christopher Columbus statue and sold it to a private bidder, who donated it to a municipality nine miles from the city. There, it was reinstalled in a public park.
Citations: 2020 Census / Quote / Monument details & history / Special Committee / Protest / Relocation
The bronze statue by Ferruccio Legnaioli, an Italian immigrant living in Richmond, was erected in Bryant Park in 1927. It was formerly owned by the City of Richmond and is now owned by the Italian American Cultural Association of Virginia.
The statue was donated to the City of Richmond by Italian Americans to adorn Monument Avenue, the city’s place of honor for Confederate heroes. Though the gift was originally rejected due to Columbus’s foreignness and Catholicism, national backlash against their decision convinced the city to dedicate land for the statue near Byrd Park. It was the first statue of Christopher Columbus erected in the American South.
When the Columbus statue was torn from its pedestal, spray painted, set on fire, and thrown into a lake during protests over George Floyd’s murder in 2020, it was retrieved and put into storage the next day.
In 2022, the City of Richmond donated the sculpture to the Italian American Cultural Association of Virginia; they have yet to locate a suitable site on which to re-erect it, but may
The atrocities inflicted upon Indigenous people by Christopher Columbus are unconscionable...But the decision and action to remove a monument should be made in collaboration with the community. Working with Richmond’s History and Culture Commission, we are establishing a process by which Richmonders can advocate for change to the figures we place on public pedestals across our city in a legal and peaceful way.
”
~Levar Stoney Richmond Mayor
allow the Virginia Museum of History and Culture to display it as part of their 2026 “Immigration in America” exhibition.
In 2017, Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney tasked a Monument Avenue Commission with determining what should be done with the city’s Confederate statues along Monument Avenue; other problematic statues, such as the one to Christopher Columbus, were not included in this review. The Commission issued its report in 2018.
The statue remains in storage.
Richmond’s Christopher Columbus statue was not originally included among the many it slated for removal—the rest of which were Confederate figures—but when the statue was vandalized in 2020, the city took it down permanently.
Citations: 2020 Census / Quote / Monument details / Monument history / Protests / Commission report
The 12’ bronze statue, created by sculptor Vittorio Di Colbertaldo—a member of Mussolini’s security force—was erected in Pioneer Park in 1957. It is owned by the City of San Francisco.
Impetus for Installation
On behalf of the city’s Italian-American community, the Consul General of Italy proposed to the San Francisco Arts Commission that they accept a Christopher Columbus statue, paid for by local Italians, the City of Genoa, and the Italian government, as a symbol of Italian-American pride.
Cause of Removal
Protesters in June 2020 threatened to forcibly remove the statue, which had already suffered other instances of vandalism, and throw it in the bay. When three other statues were toppled in Golden Gate Park that month, the city removed the Christopher Columbus statue and placed it in storage.
Review Commission
Mayor London Breed created the Monuments and Memorials Advisory Committee (MMAC) in response to the growing public unrest over the city’s monuments. The committee, which was composed of the Arts Commission, the Human Rights Commission, and the
It seems as though the news wants to pit Indigenous people against Italian Americans. No, we just don’t want to celebrate Columbus. I would joyously celebrate Italian American history for valid reasons.
Mutsun Ohlone California Native Two-Spirit activist
Recreation and Parks Department and its Commission, worked with the community to evaluate the city’s current public art and create recommendations for how to handle public art going forward. Community conversations occurred throughout 2022, and a final report was issued in May 2023. Therein, it was revealed that Bay Area residents identified the Columbus statue as the “least-liked” monument in the city’s Civic Art Collection.
The MMAC developed a amendments to Policies & Guidelines, a set of recommendations, and new processes around monuments and memorials that will guide the SF Arts Commission’s next steps for this piece and others.
The statue remains in storage.
The City of San Francisco preemptively removed its Christopher Columbus statue to prevent it from being toppled by protesters, and formed a committee to engage the community around this monument and others considered problematic.
Citations: 2020 Census / Quote / Monument details / Monument history / Monument protest / Commission report
The 10’ bronze statue by Italian-American artist Carlo Brioschi was erected at the Minnesota State Capitol in 1931. It is owned by the State of Minnesota.
Italian-Americans throughout Minnesota contributed to a fund for the statue, which was intended to counter discrimination against Italian Americans and express pride and unity within the Italian community—and to make the case that Italians should be accepted as White, given that Columbus discovered the Americas.
Members of the American Indian Movement of Twin Cities toppled the Christopher Columbus statue during protests in 2020.
The statue technically remains standing; an application for removal must be submitted and reviewed before an application to officially remove and replace the statue is considered. A Capitol Mall Design Framework that has received preliminary approval envisions an altogether new Capitol grounds, and the Board is working now to move that framework beyond the conceptual stage. It is considered unlikely that the statue will return to its original site.
We don’t have any process for how to handle removals; we’ve never done this before.
”
~Paul Mandell Executive Secretary, Capitol Area Architectural and Planning Board
The Capitol Area Architectural and Planning Board responsible for the statue had no protocols for dealing with monument removal. They soon began a process to develop new rules for commemorative works on Minnesota Capitol grounds (adopted in November 2022), as well as an overarching principle governing their decisions going forward:
“[The Capitol area] is a place to honor individuals, groups and ideas that have shaped Minnesota and contributed to our place in the nation. This is a place to share our many stories and create new ones. The Capitol Mall is known as Minnesota’s Front Yard, where all are welcome.”
The statue remains in storage.
Indigenous activists toppled the Christopher Columbus statue on Minnesota’s Capitol Mall grounds during protests in 2020. Because there were no procedures in place to deal with monument removal, the state launched a process to develop some, which will be retroactively applied to the Columbus statue.
Citations: 2020 Census / Quote / Monument details / Monument history / New rules / Capitol Mall redesign framework
everal years out from the protests that sparked the reexamination and removal of many Christopher Columbus statues throughout the United States, the debate around what to do with them, and the spaces they previously occupied, continues. These conversations and their outcomes have varied substantially across cities. In places like New York City and Philadelphia, the monuments remain in place—by choice and by legal requirement, respectively. In Boston, Newark, and Providence, they were donated or sold to new owners, who will display them on new sites. Norwich’s Italian-American community kept their monument in its original location, but removed references to Columbus to be less offensive to Indigenous community members. In Houston, the original artist accepted his statue’s return. Statues in Chicago, St. Paul, Richmond, Baltimore, and San Francisco are currently in storage but may be displayed in the future, if not on municipal grounds then in museums or other private property. Most of these monuments, it seems, will live on in some form. However, those that remain on display will likely be in new company, as cities take this opportunity to honor forgotten histories through the expansion of their civic art collections.
Within the City of Columbus, Reimagining Columbus is enabling community members to forge a unique path in its treatment of the Christopher Columbus statue that once stood at City Hall. Whatever the statue’s future disposition, and whatever is created to replace it, will be generated through a two-year process that deeply considers Columbus’s legacy and what it means for community members today. This is not easy work, but it is necessary work. Through intentional (if uncomfortable) acts of conversation and co-creation, citizens of Columbus are honoring the centuries of luck, pain, exploitation, and glory that brought them together in this place, at this time, to imagine a more harmonious future. This process promises to be illustrative for the people engaging in these brave conversations nationwide, and it will be a gift to share what emerges from it.
Baltimore, MD
Boston, MA
Chicago, IL
Columbus, OH
Houston, TX
Newark, NJ
New York, NY
Norwich, CT
Philadelphia, PA
Providence, RI
Richmond, VA
San Francisco, CA
St. Paul, MN
The statue was removed by protesters and remains in storage pending a new location, which is to be determined by its private owners.
The statue was removed by the city and donated to the Knights of Columbus, which will install it at one of their housing complexes.
Three statues were removed by the city and recommended for permanent removal; their futures remain uncertain as settlement conversations with the Italian-American community play out.
The statue was removed from City Hall grounds by the city and now remains in storage as the Reimagining Columbus process engages the community around what should be done with it and the space it once occupied.
The statue was returned to the artist, whose plans for it are unknown.
The statue was removed by the city and is now on loan to a Catholic church, which plans to install it when a pedestal has been built.
The statue still stands in its original location.
The monument was altered by the Italian-American community to remove references to Christopher Columbus and replace them with text and imagery honoring their heritage and ancestors.
The statue was “boxed” pending court proceedings, which determined that the statue must remain in place, on view.
The statue was removed by the city and sold to a nearby town, which erected it in a local park.
The statue was removed by protesters and remains in storage; it may eventually be displayed in a museum exhibit.
The statue was removed by the city and remains in storage; it is unlikely to be displayed going forward.
The statue was removed by the state and remains in storage as a process to reimagine the Capitol grounds plays out.