Columbus knocked off of his pedestal
City pulls down Coit Tower statue, a ‘painful’ symbol, before protesters do
San Francisco officials removed a 4,000pound statue of Christopher Columbus from its pedestal at Coit Tower early Thursday morning to do away with what to many was a symbol of oppression.
The city’s Arts Commission arranged for the statue’s removal with the approval of Mayor London Breed and other city leaders.
Rachelle Axel, director of public and private partnerships for the commission, said in an email that the statue was taken down because “it doesn’t align with San Francisco’s values or our commitment to racial justice.”
But removing it swiftly was also a matter of public safety, she said. The statue had been vandalized three times last week, and a flyer circulating on social media encouraged people to march to Coit Tower Friday to take it down and throw it over Pier 31 into the bay.
“The more muscle, the better!” the flyer reads. The march was billed as a Black Lives Matter demonstration, but contained no specific information on the organizers.
“A 2ton statue falling from its
pedestal presented a grave risk to citizens,” Axel said. It has been placed in storage to await a public debate over what to do with it.
On Tuesday in Sacramento, legislative leaders announced that a statue of Christopher Columbus and Queen Isabella would be removed from the Capitol rotunda.
Columbus’ exploits as a 15th century explorer hold nearmythic status, including the claim that he discovered the New World. But critics of his legacy — rife with the slaughter and enslavement of indigenous peoples in the name of European conquest— have spent decades calling for depictions of him to be removed from public places.
“I stood right there in front of where it used to be, and the first thing I felt was a breath of fresh air. I felt lighter,” said Mariposa Villaluna, an indigenous activist and organizer in San Francisco.
The San Francisco statue has been the target of scorn and politically motivated vandalism for years, regularly splashed with red paint to symbolize Columbus’ rapacious conquests. The Arts Commission and the Recreation and Park Department spent around $70,000 in the last year alone restoring the statue after vandalism.
Still, Columbus has remained an enduring symbol of pride for some of the country’s Italian Americans. The 12foot bronze Columbus statue was installed in 1957 and was sculpted by Count Vittorio di Colbertaldo of Verona, Italy, who was also an official sculptor for fascist dictator Benito Mussolini’s corps of bodyguards.
In a joint statement, Breed and supervisors Aaron Peskin and Catherine Stefani said, “At a time of great unrest and deep reflection by our country, we recognize the pain and oppression that Christopher Columbus represents to many.”
Recent weeks have witnessed historic civil unrest over racism and police violence, some of which has renewed calls for the country to reckon with its national symbols, including historical statues, many of them tied to the Civil War. Viral videos ricocheting across the internet in recent days have shown protesters in New Orleans and Bristol, England, toppling statues of slave owners and slave traders, and throwing them in nearby rivers.
“We believe that through public art we can and should honor the heritage of all of our people, including our ItalianAmerican community, but in doing so we should choose symbols that unify us,” Breed, Peskin and Stefani said in the statement. Peskin represents North Beach, San Francisco’s traditional Italian neighborhood.
“I’m not happy with it but I’m OK with it,” said Dave Barsi, board president of the ItalianAmerican Social Club of San Francisco. “The Italian American community doesn’t need a statue to tell us who we are. Go ahead and take it away. We’re comfortable with who we are.”
Stefani wrote separately on Facebook that “I know as well as anyone that Columbus has historically been a symbol of pride in Italian Americans’ contributions to this nation. But Columbus also represents the painful foundations of American history — the slavery, subjugation, and conquest we must all condemn.”
In 2018, the Arts Commission removed another controversial San Francisco statue, “Early Days,” which depicted a fallen, nearly naked American Indian lying at the feet of a vaquero and a missionary, after concluding that its offensiveness outweighed whatever role it played as an historical artifact.
San Francisco stopped formally recognizing Columbus Day in 2018, following a legislative effort led by thenSupervisor Malia Cohen to instead celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Stefani later authored a bill to also recognize Italian American Heritage Day on the same date.
“Removing the statue is not about erasing history,” Stefani said. “It is about showing love to our friends and neighbors who are hurting in this moment, to communities that have been hurting for centuries.”
Chronicle staff writers Alejandro Serrano and Steve Rubenstein contributed to this report.
“We recognize the pain and oppression that Christopher Columbus represents to many.”
Mayor London Breed, Supervisors Catherine Stefani and Aaron Peskin