COLUMBUS, Ohio — 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.
"It's just nothing but pride and acceptance," Brunetto said.
Personal pride, too. Her father and grandfather crafted special washers and a bolt to replace missing ones on the statue just in time for its dedication.
"It couldn't have gone up," Brunetto said. "It just wouldn't have happened, and you were days away from this event in 1955."
The city is now working on a two-year project called "Reimagining Columbus." Fening says, with a $2 million grant from the Mellon Foundation, the city is bringing the community together to collaborate on a design to explain Columbus' legacy as it is understood today. They put together a team of historians and consultants on diversity and inclusion, are working with an indigenous architecture firm, and are now taking public input.
"As a city named Columbus how do we talk about his legacy and who we are today and what our aspirations are and how do we visually depict that in our public space?" Fening said.
Brunetto says she understands the criticisms of Columbus and applauds the "Reimagining Columbus" project. She just wants the final design to be fair and comprehensive.
"It's about understanding," Brunetto said. "I think if everybody understands everyone's point of view, maybe things will calm down, maybe people will go, 'oh!' That may be the ah-a moment."
Tuesday's community conversation event is the first in a series of events and conversations through the spring and early summer to get the community's input on this project. Fening says they hope to have a final design by June 2025.