No clear path forward after Columbus statue put in storage
BRIDGEPORT — This week began with the city’s abrupt decision to remove the Christopher Columbus statue from Seaside Park and ended with an uncertain outlook for the future of the likeness of the controversial explorer.
“It needs to come back out. It doesn’t belong to the city. It belongs to all residents of Bridgeport,” City Council President Aidee Nieves acknowledged Friday.
Nieves was consulted about and supported
the mayor’s decision Monday to place the statue in an undisclosed storage site to, they said, protect it from possible vandalism. Nationally, activists have been targeting monuments to the explorer and other historically divisive figures. Some controversial statues have been ordered down by municipal officials, others torn down.
There had been a local protest against the statue before it was removed.
But where Bridgeport’s Columbus, commissioned and erected in the mid- 1960s by the Italian- American community, will end up, and when it will re- emerge, are the big questions facing this diverse community.
“There does need to be a conversation of next steps,” Nieves said.
State Rep. Christopher Caruso, who had been negotiating with some of Nieves’ council colleagues who initially wanted the statue out of Seaside, has continually complained that Ganim “pulled the rug out from under” their productive discussions. Caruso as of Friday was ready
to continue those talks — and also to engage directly with some members of the public who held a July 4 weekend protest at the statue — on one condition.
“Until the statue is put back on its base ( in Seaside), you can’t have meaningful discussions or negotiations,” Caruso said.
Caruso also argued — and Nieves agreed — that the likeness of Columbus is not municipal property.
“Frankly it’s our statue,” Caruso said, meaning Italian- Americans. “And when the mayor just pulled the statue down, he circumvented any lawful process for the appropriate removal of the statue.”
Caruso said he has had email exchanges with Ganim’s chief- ofstaff, Dan Shamas, this week to try and move matters forward.
Neither Shamas nor Ganim’s office responded to repeated requests for comment, including about the legality of their keeping the monument in an undisclosed location if it is not City Hall’s property.
Nieves said Councilman Jorge Cruz must be key to settling the issue. It was Cruz, whose South End district includes Seaside, who had been publicly threat
ening for the last several weeks to submit a resolution seeking his colleagues’ support for removing Columbus. He had been calling Columbus “a killer” on social media.
Cruz had been meeting with Caruso and other Italian- American leaders and also felt the mayor threw that into disarray.
“The mayor, the council president, I wish they would have called us — called me,” Cruz said Friday. “They knew I was talking, me and other council members, with Mr. Caruso. ... I thought we were making good progress, solid progress.”
That included a deal to leave Columbus in Seaside, Cruz and Caruso had said earlier this week, and to seek other ways to “unify” Bridgeport’s different ethnic communities. Still, Cruz had celebrated on social media when the monument was removed.
Told of Caruso’s terms for re- starting talks, Cruz said: “I have no problem with the statue going back.”
“However,” he continued, “Ever since the statue went down, a lot of people have called expressing satisfaction that it’s down. There’s two forest fires burning, and I’m in the middle. Though I don’t mind the statue coming back for the sake of peace, I have a constituency and other residents of Bridgeport I have to contend with. ... We must have community meetings before any statue’s placed back up there.”
Even if Ganim were to quickly reverse course and within the coming days or weeks restore the statue to Seaside, that would then present the city with the decision of guarding it. The mayor’s office on Monday said it was removed “out of an abundance of caution for preservation of the historic artifact, the need to respond to modern- day sensitivities, as well as public safety at large.”
Nieves said there were threats against the statue and the mayor’s office noted how vandals be- headed a Columbus monument in Waterbury on July 4. Ganim’s office had also noted it was not practical to have roundthe- clock policing of the statue with all of the other public safety needs in Bridgeport.
Nieves on Friday said she still believes storing Columbus for protection was the right decision for Ganim to make.
As for preventing any future vandalism, Nieves said, “It has to be through consensus. Everybody has to agree that the statue is not to be touched.”
Caruso said he hoped his meeting with some protesters to “come up with an amicable resolution” will help.
“All of these so- called threats are so- called — they’re assumptions,” Caruso said. But, he added, “Any necessary security should be in place.”