Slams M-Viv over statue of Columbus

THE LEADER of an Italian-American group accused City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito on Sunday of hooking “her wagon to this hate train of taking down statues.”

Joseph Guagliardo, chairman and CEO for the Conference of Presidents of Major Italian-American Organizations, blasted the speaker in a radio interview in the debate on the fate of the Christopher Columbus statue in Midtown.

Mark-Viverito recently said a city commission that will scrap symbols of hate should take a look at the Genoa-born explorer’s W. 59th St. statue.

The commission is being formed after the white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, Va., that cost local resident Heather Heyer, 32, her life.

But Mark-Viverito is playing with the political winds, according to Guagliardo.

She “suddenly just woke up one morning ... and decided that the statue of Christopher Columbus should come down also. There is no criteria as to which statues should or shouldn’t come down,” Guagliardo said on John Catsimatidis’ 970 AM “Cats Roundtable” radio show.

Guagliardo, who is also president of the National Council of Columbia Associations in Civil Service, vowed pols on the wrong side of the Columbus statue issue would feel it come Election Day.

Guagliardo isn’t the only one crying foul.

On Thursday, ItalianAmerican politicians gathered at City Hall to denounce any effort to take down the statue.

A representative for Mark-Viverito could not be reached for comment.