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A judge ruled Philadelphia must remove a plywood box covering a statue of Christopher Columbus the city has been trying to remove from a park since the explorer became a focus amid nationwide protests against racial injustice .
Common Pleas Judge Paula Patrick released her ruling on Friday in response to a request from the Friends of Marconi Plaza. Mayor Jim Kenney’s administration quickly filed a notice that it would appeal – and said it would not be removing the box in the meantime, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Lawyer George Bochetto, who represents supporters of the 144-year-old statue, has promised it will be on view when a parade scheduled for Sunday concludes in the square.
“If the city does not remove it, we will remove it for them,” he said.
Kenney’s spokesman Kevin Lessard said the statue should remain wrapped “in the best interest and public safety of all Philadelphians” and that any destruction of public property would be a crime.
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Patrick said on Friday the city could erect a clear structure to protect the monument but must remove the plywood.
In Philadelphia, a city with a deep Italian heritage, supporters say they see Columbus as an emblem of that heritage. Mayor Jim Kenney said Columbus was revered for centuries as an explorer, but had a “much more infamous” history, enslaving Indigenous peoples and imposing punishments such as limb sectioning or even death.
Kenney had previously signed an executive order changing the name of the annual holiday from Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day. Monday will be the city’s first public holiday under the new name.
After the unrest following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police last year, Kenney called the statue’s removal a public safety issue. Patrick, however, wrote that the city had not provided evidence that the removal of the statue was necessary to protect the public, calling the clashes “isolated civil unrest”.
The judge ruled in August that the statue could remain in the square, calling the decision to remove it “puzzling” and unsupported by law and based on insufficient evidence. The decision overturned a decision by a city licensing council that upheld a July 2020 decision by the city’s historical commission to remove the statue.
Meanwhile, another 106-foot-tall Christopher Columbus monument at Penn’s Landing on the Delaware River will be allowed to remain in place with covers removed for the foreseeable future under a lawsuit settlement announced last month, a reported the newspaper.
The Delaware River Waterfront Corporation, a nonprofit organization that manages the park, and the America 500 Anniversary Corporation, which raised funds to donate the monument in 1992, said the signs placed around the base of the monument as a result of the unrest would be withdrawn as part of the settlement.
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The coverings included blackboards intended “to give the public a voice during a time of civil unrest,” said riverside company chairman Joe Forkin. He said authorities would withdraw them “and continue to fulfill our contractual obligation to keep the monument as it is,” but remained committed to raising public awareness and allowing for the expression of a variety of views. Another public engagement campaign was about to begin, he said.
The work designed by Robert Venturi is “a reinvented obelisk” surmounted by a weather vane representing the colors of Italy, the explorer’s country of birth, and of Spain, the country for which he sailed. It was also intended to represent “the role that all immigrants played in the formation of Philadelphia and the United States,” according to the nonprofit group’s website.
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