A monument to change
“Schuyler was great patriot, noble citizen”: That was the headline on the front page of the Times Union on June 13, 1925, the day before the unveiling of a statue of Philip Schuyler, Revolutionary War general and son of Albany, in front of City Hall.
If the city sticks to its schedule, that statue will be coming down almost two years shy of its centennial. The removal is part of our society’s ongoing reckoning with its racial history, because Gen. Schuyler was also one of colonial Albany’s most prominent enslavers.
Removing the statue from its place of honor is the right decision; it’s not a fit symbol for a multicultural city. And since it’s been close to three years since Mayor Kathy Sheehan announced she would have it removed, we’re happy to see her follow through on that pledge.
But it’s disappointing to hear city officials say the monument will go into storage while they figure out where to put it. Those arrangements should
To comment: have been made by now. What should not happen is that the statue goes into some city warehouse and never comes back out.
Removing a statue isn’t “erasing ” history, no matter what hand-wringers might say about the dismantling of Confederate monuments: A statue isn’t history; it’s not even much of a history lesson. But it can be part of one, representing not only something about our past, but also something about the people who erected it.
History itself may not change, but our understanding of it does. So do our values, and with them our symbols and heroes. So the best thing that could happen to the Schuyler monument is that it be reinstalled in a place where the man — and subsequent generations’ mythologizing of early Americans — can be put in context. We can both honor Gen. Schuyler’s service to our fledgling nation and understand how his successes grew from a milieu in which he relied on chattel slavery. As the teen scholars at the Young Abolitionist Leadership Institute wrote in a report urging the statue’s relocation: “His accomplishments were possible because he stood on the shoulders of those who were enslaved to him.”
More meaningful than just removing the statue would be to use its story to launch a broader conversation about Albany’s own history with slavery. Though New York state abolished the odious practice decades before the Civil War, it was pervasive here and throughout New Netherland for many years, and Albany profited from it. The subject demands more visibility.
The reckoning with heroes and history isn’t the only opportunity the city’s plan brings. With the Schuyler statue gone, Albany will have a chance to redesign the awkward triangle in front of City Hall — perilous for pedestrians and drivers — and turn the space into something that works better for both.
And finally: As the city removes the statue from its plinth, we hope officials take the time to retrieve and open the time capsule placed with it back in 1925, described in the program of the day’s events as “a bronze chest” containing books, newspapers, photographs, currency and other memorabilia. It will be another opportunity to look back on how things used to be, and get a sense of how far we’ve come.