Schenley Park’s Columbus statue ‘erases history,’ Pitt professor says
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The Pittsburgh Art Commission held a special hearing Thursday to gather public comment on the future of the 62-year-old Christopher Columbus statue in Schenley Park.
The statue has been the subject of debate as the city determines whether to remove or replace it. An online petition has garnered more than 14,000 signatures in support of its removal.
Pittsburgh is not the only city having this discussion — monuments to the voyager inhabit more than 200 cities in the country. Boston, Buffalo and Los Angeles are among those that have decided to remove them.
The Art Commission is considering one of four actions for Pittsburgh’s monument: removal, replacement, alteration or no action. Ahead of the meeting, commissioners had so far received 4,402 comments on the future of the statue, between emails, letters and statements from previous hearings. Commissioners said of those, 1,311 called for no action, 1,710 asked for removal, 1,325 suggested replacement and 50 favored alterations.
Before opening the virtual forum for public comment, the commission heard from Kirk Savage, a professor of history of art and architecture at the University of Pittsburgh. Savage offered historical background on the popularity of Columbus statues across the U.S., which he said were often seen as symbols of ethnic pride by Italian Americans. Native Americans and other indigenous groups were able to organize and begin challenging the traditional view of the statues around the 1980s, he said.
“Dozens of communities with Columbus monuments have been facing a balancing act, weighing two seemingly opposing harms,” Savage said.
Savage went on to give a detailed synopsis of Columbus’ personal history and the story of his voyage and exploration of the Americas — which led to their “discovery” by European nations. Columbus was an Italian explorer who famously made four journeys, from 1492 through 1504, to regions of the Caribbean and Central and South America. He never visited North America.
Savage included details that make the statues so controversial: colonization, enslavement, looting and other cruelties.
“Columbus was baked into the self-image of the U.S. from the very beginning,” Savage said, describing how his history was used to justify driving Native Americans out of their lands. The monuments began popping up thereafter.
Later in the late 19th century, Italian Americans who had faced discrimination began to use the monuments “to legitimate themselves, and to demonstrate their allegiance to America,” Savage said. “He anchored Italian Americans in a uniquely American mythology of discovery and conquest and expansion.”
Savage said Pittsburgh’s monument “sugarcoats” American history, and doesn’t represent the realities experienced by Italian Americans, either.
“Pittsburgh’s Columbus monument is not good history,” Savage said. “In fact, it erases history.”
Several speakers of Italian American heritage threw support to the statue, saying Columbus is an important figure to their culture, representing dignity and achievement through years of discrimination of Italian immigrants. Many claimed Columbus’ history has been misrepresented by academics and activists, and a few challenged Savage’s remarks directly.
Jack Piazzio supported keeping the Columbus monument and suggested building another statue to revere indigenous Americans in another section of the park.
“People believe that they can redefine these experiences and determine what and whom people should revere,” said Piazzio, who cited the influence Columbus had on global commerce and the exchange of ideas. “It is disgusting, pathetic and frankly un-American.”
Some proponents also asked for clearer metrics for how the commission is evaluating this statue and others in the city, accusing the discourse of being one-sided.
“Why are you focusing on this statue alone, and not the other statues?” asked Giorgio DiPaolo. “As an Italian American and Catholic, it’s hard not to believe the mayor and this art commission are not discriminating against our communities.”
But many other speakers asked for the statue to be removed or replaced, citing Columbus’ long-term impacts on the treatment of indigenous peoples in the U.S.
“You cannot discover a place that is already here,” said Ikhana-Hal-Makina, who identified as the Grand Inca of the Iroquois Confederacy of Aboriginal American People. “You cannot discover the people that inhabited the Americas … America must begin by telling the truth to the people of the land.”
Italian Americans were also represented among proponents for the statue’s removal or replacement. Emily DeFerrari, an Italian American who lives in Point Breeze, said taking the statue down would be a “gift to be able to be seen as part of a group of immigrants that came to this country and that worked for the betterment of the people that we live with.”
Donald Victoria, another Italian American who grew up in Greenfield and now attends Pitt, agreed.
“We have plenty of other heroes to look to for inspiration,” he said. “I have no reason to take pride in this man, nor should anyone.”
The commission will make a decision on the future of the statue at a meeting Sept. 23.