Just as abruptly as Mayor Joe Ganim had a 60-year-old statue of Christopher Columbus removed from Seaside Park over two years ago and placed in an old horse barn there, his administration last week relocated the bronze monument to the Circulo Sportivo Italian American Club.

Where the statue, donated in 1965 by representatives of the local Italian community, winds up from there is unclear. Back at Seaside in the South End? On other public land? At the club or on other private property? The moving of the statue, done for the second time without the authorization of the city's park commission, came just days before the municipal law department issued an opinion stating that board in fact has "full jurisdiction ... to determine the future care, custody and control of the statue."