Let Christopher stand

For generations now, the holiday we celebrate Monday would be a moment of unalloyed pride and pomp — especially for New York’s Italian-American community. This year, Columbus Day is a source of rancor, as the city awaits the verdict of a misbegotten mayoral commission that deliberates whether to let the iconic statue of the explorer high atop Columbus Circle stand.

Is it a “symbol of hate,” to use Mayor de Blasio’s arrogantly reductive term, or a legitimate expression of ethnic pride?

The 18-member jury will so decide as it unnecessarily develops sweeping standards for determining whether any given monument is worthy of remaining on public property.

The mayor, who embraces his half-Italian heritage, now withholds judgment on the explorer’s fate. He should have moral clarity enough to say, right now: Columbus stays. Especially since he wants to keep Columbus Day and will march in Monday’s parade. What’s the difference?

This statue, and its smaller brother sitting nearer Central Park, were gifts by Italian-Americans to the city in 1892 — the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ maiden voyage to what was then known as the New World.

It was a time when (see Op-Eds on this and facing pages) Italians were flowing into the city in droves, and facing rampant hostility. As embattled religious and ethnic groups often do, they sought to embrace their heritage, to rally around a focal point of pride. They found it in Columbus — and raised private funds to erect the monument.

Why? Because his journey exemplified risk, and perseverance, and exploration, among the most inspiring animating spirits of humanity in general, and of the United States in particular.

And because without him, there would quite literally be no America as we know it today, a land of immigrants from across the planet bound together by common ideals.

All the while, Columbus has remained a hero to the Italians who played a large part in building the city we know, from its skyscrapers above to its subways below. And led us through good times and bad, including Fiorello LaGuardia and Rudy Giuliani and, yes, Bill de Blasio.

Columbus was no saint. A man of his time, he committed what we now consider atrocities, enslaving and slaughtering indigenous people. Those crimes should not be ignored.

But the singularity of his positive achievements and his iconic connection to Italian-American heritage argue powerfully for his monument to remain.