A century-old statue of Christopher Columbus that was defaced and tossed into a lake during protests in Virginia four years ago is now standing tall in New York City’s suburbs.
The 1-ton likeness of the Italian explorer was moved to Rockland County after it was salvaged by the Sons of Italy in the Rockland town of Blauvelt, and the stately cleaned-up monument was unveiled there Sunday, News 12 Westchester reported.
“The statue represents Italian heritage and culture and everything that we’re proud of,” said Michael Pizzi of the Order of the Sons of Italy Lodge No.2176 at the unveiling.
Fellow order member Paul Borghese told News12 the move was meant to pay homage to history.
“As Italian-Americans, we’re all very proud of Christopher Columbus, and we’re here to preserve the history of Christopher Columbus finding and discovering America,” Borghese said.
The 8-foot-tall statue, which was made in 1925, previously stood in Richmond, Va., but became part of a backlash against controversial historical figures and was defaced by protesters in 2020.
The statue was then actually lifted from its foundation and thrown into Fountain Lake in the city during the rowdy demonstration, the Raleigh News Observer reported.
It was ultimately recovered and restored by the Rockland group.
The move to resurrect the statue isn’t without controversy.
“Columbus never discovered America,” Cliff Mathias, cultural director of the Red Hawk Native American Arts Council, told the outlet. “He never set foot in the mainland of what we call today the United States, the Americas.”
According to historians, Columbus was dispatched by the Spanish crown for his voyage and made four Atlantic crossings to the “New World” between 1492 and 1502.
The navigator first made landfall in the Bahamas and set foot along the Caribbean — but is not believed to have ever landed on the coast of what is now North America, historians say.
“By no means is Columbus someone that this country should celebrate,” Mathias said “If you go to Italy … most of them don’t give a hoot about Columbus. He’s not celebrated in Italy at all.”
But the explorer has long been hailed as a source of national pride by Italian-Americans, who see his risky voyage as the move that opened the door for the settling of the Americas by Europe.
