Pittsburgh officials are allowing a controversial statue of Christopher Columbus to remain mostly uncovered as a lawsuit over the monument’s future stretches into its fifth year.
The controversial monument that stands in Schenley Park was wrapped in plastic in October 2020 as it became the center of a legal battle over whether it should be removed.
Most of the covering has since been ripped away by weather, said Olga George, a spokeswoman for Mayor Ed Gainey. Plastic now covers only the base of the statue, and the rest is visible.
In 2020, then-Mayor Bill Peduto and the city’s art commission wanted to remove the statue amid concerns it glorified a man who mistreated native inhabitants of the New World he’s credited with discovering.
The Italian Sons and Daughters of America sued to keep the statue in the park. The Pittsburgh-based organization contends the famed 15th-century explorer and navigator is an uplifting symbol of their heritage and immigration at large.
As the case meanders through the courts, the statue this year will be on full display for Columbus Day for the first time since 2019. The city plans to leave the statue uncovered pending a final court decision, George said.
That’s unwelcome news for Miguel Sague, who sits on the board of the Council of Three Rivers American Indian Center. Sague is a descendant of the Taino tribe, the first indigenous people Columbus encountered when he reached the Caribbean.
Sague said he takes offense at the statue depicting as a hero a man who brutalized his ancestors. He criticized the way the statue is displayed without information to explain the negative consequences of Columbus’ conquests.
“That’s a full glorification of Christopher Columbus,” Sague said of the monument.
To Basil Russo, president of the Italian Sons and Daughters of America, the statue is an expression of pride in his heritage.
“The statue in Schenley Park stands as a tribute to the contributions that not only Italian immigrants but all immigrants have made to the city of Pittsburgh,” he said.
Russo rejected the portrayal of Columbus as a monster and classified the city’s attempt to remove the statue as “choosing to pick a fight with the Italian-American community.”
He said he was glad to see the statue was again visible and referenced a situation in Philadelphia — where a court ordered a box placed on a Columbus statue to be removed in December 2022 — as evidence the courts may have forced the city to remove the covering had it not been taken off already.
The dispute over the statue began in 2020 after Peduto and the city’s art commission recommended removing the statue. The Italian Sons and Daughters of America sought an emergency injunction to bar the monument’s removal.
The situation has sat in legal limbo since.
In 2022, an Allegheny County judge tried to throw out the complaint, arguing the mayor had the right to remove a statue on city property. The Italian heritage group appealed, countering that such a decision required City Council approval.
A Commonwealth Court ruling this year sent the matter back to Allegheny County Judge John T. McVay. No date has been set for the next formal proceeding before McVay, though a pretrial meeting was held last month.
The bronze-and-granite statue was unveiled in Schenley Park in 1958. It was erected by the Sons of Columbus of America, a predecessor of the Italians Sons and Daughters of America, with approval from the city.
The statue was crafted by famed Italian-American sculptor and Pittsburgher Frank Vittor. His work includes the Honus Wagner statue outside PNC Park, a recently refurbished World War I memorial at Obama Academy and the design for a commemorative half-dollar coined in 1938 to memorialize the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg.
City Councilwoman Barb Warwick, D-Greenfield, who represents the area where the Columbus statue stands, said she is hoping the fight over the monument will be resolved with a compromise.
“I think there’s room to bring people together to understand why this statue creates the emotional response it does,” she said.
Warwick last year spearheaded a movement to name the second Monday of October — the same date that honors Columbus — Indigenous Peoples’ Day in the city.
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Warwick said she’s hopeful that — no matter what the courts decide — the saga ends with a resolution that makes most people happy.
Removing the massive statue, Warwick said, would be difficult and costly. The city would have to figure out what to do with the removed artwork and the space it leaves behind.
But Warwick said she also can’t support leaving it as it now stands, with no context to educate people about the history associated with Columbus.
Middle ground is what Sague and Russo are looking to find, too.
Sague said he doesn’t want to see an exalted Columbus statue — but he doesn’t want to see the monument destroyed either. He said he would like for it to be displayed somewhere with historical context that encourages people to learn about Columbus and better understand different perspectives.
Russo said he would like to see the statue stay where it is. But the Italian Sons and Daughters of America is willing to pay for a new statue honoring an indigenous hero to sit alongside it. The idea, Russo said, is to provide historical information about Columbus and an indigenous figure chosen by local Native American organizations.
“We’re not looking for a situation where there’s a winner and a loser,” he said. “That just creates more ill will and more mistrust among groups — and we have too much of that in our country today.”