The Philadelphia Art Commission voted to remove a statue of Christopher Columbus from Marconi Plaza in South Philadelphia. The decision was voted Wednesday morning. Officials said the statue will be placed in temporary storage.
The Philadelphia Art Commission voted 8-0, with one member abstaining, to place the statue in temporary storage and require a report every six months on efforts to find it a permanent home. The city’s historical commission had voted 10-2 late last week for removal of the statue.
The statue has been boarded up since protests escalated into physical confrontations back in June
As commissioners deliberated, many expressed that they had gained insight from the public testimony, particularly around the wide range of opinions and diversity of experiences represented.
Some residents think the statue is an important part of Italian-American heritage and should be left alone. Others denounced Columbus as a symbol of hate and oppression.
You can read: Man charged with assault for punching African-American photographer at Marconi Plaza
Statues of Columbus were earlier removed in nearby Camden, New Jersey, and Wilmington, Delaware. In Richmond, Virginia, a statue of Christopher Columbus was torn down, set on fire and thrown into a lake. In Columbia, South Carolina, the first U.S. city named for Columbus, a statue of the explorer was removed after it was vandalized several times, and a vandalized statue in Boston also was removed from its pedestal.
“Philadelphia’s public art should reflect the people and spirit of our city without dividing us as a community,” Public Art Director Margot Berg said in a previous statement. “As we’ve seen demonstrated here and across the country, many of the individuals that are celebrated in bronze and stone are a point of pride to some, while causing great pain for others whose ancestors were impacted by their actions and whose communities still suffer under systems of oppression.
It was not known when the statue would be moved.
Noticias Newswire
