The City of Columbus is looking to discover how the community wants to display the city's Christopher Columbus statue. That statue was removed from its pedestal outside city hall on July 1, 2020 and put in storage in a secret location. "Mayor Ginther made the decision that the statue, as it was displayed, didn't reflect our values and our aspirations as a community," Columbus Department of Development Deputy Director Jennifer Fening said.
Tuesday evening the city is holding its first community conversation about the future of the statue from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Columbus Metropolitan Library’s main auditorium. Landa Masdea Brunetto calls the removal heartbreaking because of what the statue symbolizes for Italian-Americans in Columbus who themselves felt marginalized at the time the statue was gifted by the city of Genoa, Italy in 1955.
