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BROOKLYN WEEKLY, JUNE 21, 2020
The Downtown Brooklyn Columbus statue. Photo by Kevin Duggan
Capsized kayakers rescued in Gowanus
Firefi ghters work to rescue the pair of sunken boaters. Citizen
An anonymous online group
has launched a small petition to
remove the statue of Christopher
Columbus from outside the State
Supreme Court Building in Downtown
Brooklyn, and to rename the
The petition, which was started
on June 10 by a group that calls itself
simply “The People,” demands
that the city turn to Native American
communities for choosing
the new name of the park and the
statue’s replacement, lamenting
the 15th-century explorer for his
“ruthless conquest and settler colonialism.”
“We demand that the name of
Columbus Park be changed! We
demand that the statue of Columbus
be removed! We demand that
you consult Native communities
in renaming the park,” the initiative
reads.
The petition has also sparked
an educational talk at the statue
called “Oh No Columbus,” set for
Friday night at 8:30 pm, according
to a Greenpoint organizer of the
event, who asked not to be named
for fear of backlash.
The activist said that she hadn’t
heard about the Kings County
statue honoring Columbus until
one of her friends told her about it,
and she wanted to organize a discussion
exploring Columbus’s history,
while drawing attention to
“We should come out and talk
about this thing that nobody knows
about here,” the organizer said.
The 7-foot marble statue atop
an 11-foot pedestal was sculpted by
Emma Stebbins in the 1860s, but
lingered in a Central Park maintenance
yard until 1934, when offi
cials installed it in Manhattan’s
Chinatown, according to the Parks
Department’s website. In 1971, following
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BY KEVIN DUGGAN
adjacent Columbus Park.
the Brooklyn monument.
the renaming of the southern
part of Cadman Plaza in honor
of Columbus, the administration of
Mayor John Lindsay installed the
statue at its current location with
support from the Italian Historical
Society of America.
The Italian-American group’s
executive director argued that Columbus
was a pioneer and that removing
the statue was an “attack”
on history.
“At a time when even the shape
of this planet was unknown, Christopher
Columbus was a man with
a vision and extraordinary navigation
skills,” said John LaCorte
in a statement. “To look at the accomplishment
through a historical
and moral perspective that has
evolved over 600 years is an attack
on an understanding of history
and the evolution of human consciousness.”
The president of the Bath
Beach-based Federation of Italian
American Organizations of Brooklyn
said that, while he supported
the need for recognizing other
groups’s history, it should not come
at the expense of Columbus.
“The statues, parks and streets
dedicated to Columbus represent
the important achievements and
contributions of Italian Americans
today to our American society,”
said Jack Spatola in a statement.
Last October, a vandal spraypainted
the letters “FC” at the
base of the pedestal on the federal
holiday dedicated to Columbus —
which has been recently renamed
“Indigenous People’s Day” in some
parts of the country to appease critics
who denounced the explorer for
his enslavement of the natives he
encountered during his travels.
The recent move to take the
monument down, which has so far
collected more than 150 signatures
of support, comes amid similar demands
to remove and rename the
more prominent Columbus statue
atop Columbus Circle in Manhattan
— for which another petition
has already collected some 5,000
signatures.
The initiatives have gained momentum
as nationwide protests
continue to decry police brutality
toward black Americans in the
wake of the killing of 46-year-old
George Floyd by a former Minneapolis
police offi cer.
This is not the fi rst time Columbus
statues in New York City have
faced scrutiny.
Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2017
launched a commission to review
“symbols of hate” across the city
— including statues of Columbus
— following the deadly white supremacist
“Unite the Right” rally
in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The city ultimately decided to
keep the statues, amid fi erce defenses
from Italian Americans,
including Gov. Andrew Cuomo,
but offi cials said they would place
new historical markers explaining
the history of the explorer and the
monument itself.
At his daily press briefi ng on
June 12, de Blasio declined to take
a new position on the statues and
stuck by the 2017 review.
“The commission did really
careful, extensive work, really
good, devoted people who care
about understanding all of history
and they care about social
justice and came up with a vision
for how to address this,” de Blasio
said. “We should, I think, just stick
to what was achieved by that commission.”
Governor Cuomo weighed in
at his June 11 press conference,
saying that while he understood
criticisms of Columbus’s acts, the
statue represents the contributions
of Italian-Americans to New
York.
“I understand the feelings about
Christopher Columbus and some
of his acts, which nobody would
support,” Cuomo said on June 11.
“But the statue has come to represent
and signify appreciation for
the Italian-American contribution
to New York, so for that reason, I
support it.”
DISCOVER THAT!
Petition calls for removal of Downtown
Brooklyn Columbus statue, renaming park
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Firefi ghters rescued two teenage
kayakers who capsized into
the notoriously-toxic Gowanus
Canal on June 13.
The duo’s shared boat started
fi lling with water near the Third
Street Bridge after 4 pm, and kept
fi lling until suddenly it fl ipped,
according to one of the sunken
boaters.
“I can’t believe we fell in
there,” said Baron Pena.
New York’s Bravest sent out
its marine unit to the rescue, with
wetsuit-wearing smoke eaters to
help fi sh the submerged sailors
out of the putrid waterway.
Both Pena and the girl were
unharmed from their dip in
Brooklyn’s Nautical Purgatory
and refused a trip to the hospital.
Inspectors have in the past
found the sediment to contain
high amounts of toxic chemicals
and heavy metals, such as
mercury, lead, and copper, along
with traces of dog poop and even
gonorrhea!