Speaking at a Board of Park Commissioners meeting Tuesday, Mayor Jorge Elorza said, in the past, the city did not follow standards on the appropriateness of monuments and the city now intends to review the statue from all angles.
“I think the most thoughtful thing to do is to convene this committee,” Elorza said, “and I hope they’ll offer up some very thoughtful recommendations for us to consider.”
The statue was removed June 2 from Columbus Park in the city’s Elmwood neighborhood amid a national debate over monuments honoring historical figures complicit in the perpetuation of racism, slavery, and colonization.
Some public speakers at Tuesday’s online meeting said they think it’s inappropriate to memorialize Columbus because of his complicity in the enslavement and killing of indigenous people.
“If you know the story of Columbus and the real history—not the whitewashed history—you know that he was a genocidal person,” said Crow Grando, who is of indigenous and Italian descent. “Imagine being an indigenous person or a person who shares that heritage and seeing a genocidal person commemorated publicly and celebrated.”
Grando added, “If a statue like this is to be placed in public, it needs to be placed in context with the actual history as it happened, not as it was rewritten to be palatable by the public who does not know their history.”
Jenny Sparks, of The Steelyard arts non-profit in Providence, said her organization has been discussing the monument with Lorén Spears of the Tomaquag Museum in Exeter and would like to melt down the Columbus statue and work with indigenous artists to repurpose the bronze.
Other speakers said they want the statue returned to Columbus Park as a symbol of the neighborhood where it was located and the Gorham Manufacturing Company, where it was cast.
“This statue actually means something to my particular neighborhood probably more than anybody else,” David Talan said. “So when the time comes to put it where it belongs, where it belongs is in my neighborhood.”
Providence Councilman and Board of Park Commissioners member Nicholas Narducci said he was “very upset” about the statue’s removal and would not support melting it down.
“History’s made and should be taught and not forgotten,” Narducci said. “New history can also be made so we can teach [it to people] like my granddaughter.”
The statue, which for decades stood atop a base of gray Westerly granite at the intersection of Reservoir Avenue and Elmwood Avenue, was sculpted by artist Auguste Bartholdi and dedicated in 1893.
Parks Superintendent Wendy Nilsson says she doesn’t expect the board to take-up committee recommendations on the statue before this fall. She wants to eventually review all city monuments.
Nilsson said the statue, which has been vandalized in the past with red paint symbolizing blood, is being kept safely in storage.
Columbus Park is currently closed to the public for construction.
Alex Nunes can be reached at anunes@thepublicsradio.org.
