Christopher Columbus never stepped foot on what is today the United States. He never visited California or sailed the Pacific Ocean. And he didn’t discover America in 1492. But that hasn’t stopped American cities, including San Francisco, from erecting statues honoring the genocidal explorer. After decades of protests, the city quietly removed the bronze monument from its plinth on Telegraph Hill and put him into hiding.
All it took was the threat of a protest that never happened.
On Thursday, Mayor London Breed ordered the statue be removed from its spot next door to Coit Tower, where it stood since 1957. Her directive came after a Black Lives Matter rally, planned for Friday, promised to “pull down the Christopher Columbus statue and throw is over Pier 31” in Fisherman’s Wharf. Workers arrived on the scene with a crane, which they used to lift the statue up and carry it away before denizens could fell it themselves, withholding the opportunity to see people carry the two-ton statue down the rickety wooden Filbert Street Steps, across the Embarcadero, and toss it in the bay.
“It was removed because it doesn’t align with San Francisco’s values or our commitment to racial justice,” says Arts Commission spokeswoman Rachelle Axel. “Doing it quickly was also a matter of public safety.”
BREAKING: Christopher Columbus statue at San Francisco's Coit Tower taken down early this morning.
This is ahead of a planned protest that planned to throw it into the bay. pic.twitter.com/Fr2xXBjeO1
— Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez (@FitzTheReporter) June 18, 2020
The statue has been safely placed in storage at an undisclosed location, says Axel, adding, “We look forward to engaging the community in a meaningful conversation around next steps for the statue and for the site.”
Ideas for what, if anything, will replace Columbus include a statue of another historic Italian-American, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, an arguably inept idea. Another concept could be a memorial to Maya Angelou, critically lauded poet and the first Black female to work as a cable-car operator in S.F., whose presence atop Telegraph Hill would be ideal — and a good start. Out of roughly 90 statues in the city, S.F. only has two depicting real-life women: a bust of Senator Dianne Feinstein, located outside her former office at City Hall, and a statue of Florence Nightingale, in front of Laguna Honda Hospital.
Over the years, protesters have defaced the Columbus figure, sculpted by Vittorio di Colbertaldo, a former bodyguard for Benito Mussolini, with red paint and graffiti, usually before the federal holiday honoring the 15th-century Italian navigator. Anarchy symbols and messages on the concrete base, reading “Destroy all monuments of genocide” and “Kill all colonizers,” were common DIY renovations throughout the decades.
Although officials intercepted Friday’s plan to topple the statue, other still-standing sculptures came crashing down. Protesters overturned three statues in Golden Gate Park that night: Junipero Serra, the priest whose California mission system forcefully converted the Native population to Catholicism and European culture; “Star-Spangled Banner” lyricist Francis Scott Key, and former U.S. president Ulysses S. Grant, a slave owner.
“There is very real pain in this country rooted in our history of slavery and oppression, especially against African-Americans and indigenous people,” says Axel. “I know that pain all too well, but the damage done to our park last night went far beyond just the statues that were torn down and included significant damage to Golden Gate Park.” She points out that money used to clean up Friday’s mêlée takes funding away from supporting other community efforts. “I say this not to defend any particular statue or what it represents, but to recognize that when people take action in the name of my community, they should actually involve us. And when they vandalize our public parks, that’s their agenda, not ours,” she adds.
In 2018, the Arts Commission removed Early Days, one part of the larger Pioneer Monument that sits in Civic Center. The 1894 tableau was supposed to represent the colonization of California by Spain, featuring a vaquero and a missionary helping a fallen Indian (dressed like a member of one of the American Plains tribes rather than a California native). Just like the Columbus statue, Native American activists and supporters have been asking the city to remove the statue for decades, calling it racist and demeaning.
The Arts Commission plans to work with the city to evaluate its public art and how it reflects the country’s racist history. “Who and what we honor through our public art can and should reflect our values,” says Axel.
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San Francisco Quietly Puts Statue of Genocidal Explorer Into Hiding - Curbed SF
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