Columbus statue named most hated

S.F. advisory panel, created after toppling of sculptures in 2020, reveals survey’s results

The results of a long-awaited survey by a new San Francisco commission are in, showing which historic monuments and memorials are most loved — and hated — by city residents.

San Francisco’s Monuments and Memorials Advisory Committee, which was created after protesters toppled three bronze sculptures in Golden Gate Park that had been seen as symbols of oppression, commissioned the survey and plans to present its findings to the city’s Arts Commission on Wednesday.

The statue voted most hated by San Francisco residents was a 4,000-pound statue of Christopher Columbus that previously lived at Coit Tower but was dramatically removed in 2020 before protesters could knock it down. For decades, critics of Columbus’ 15th-century exploits — including the enslavement and mass killings of Indigenous people in the process — have demanded monuments to him be removed from the public eye.

“Like many communities across the country, San Francisco is reckoning with the legacy of white supremacy, patriarchy, and colonialism reflected in public spaces, specifically in monuments and memorials that are part of San Francisco’s Civic Art Collection,” spokespersons for the advisory committee wrote in the report.

City residents were asked to share their likes and dislikes about the statues specific to San Francisco’s Civic Art Collection, which is made up of more than 4,000 objects including 98 historic monuments and memorials that are under the jurisdiction of the Arts Commission. Only 679 participants responded, but Arts Commission officials say the survey was only the first step in a longer process to reevaluate which individuals or events are memorialized in San Francisco.

“Our initial objective was to attain a sample size of 500 participants, and we were delighted to surpass that target,” commission spokespersons said.

The Padre Junipero Serra statue that was pulled to the ground by a crowd in June 2020 was the second-most-hated, followed closely by Civic Center’s 47-foot-tall and 800-ton James Lick Pioneer Monument that survived the 1906 earthquake. The Dewey Monument in Union Square — dedicated to Adm. George Dewey, the naval com

mander of the Spanish-American War — came in fourth place.

According to the report, the most-liked monument within the Civic Art Collection is Lotta’s Fountain, a 24-foot cast iron sculpture commissioned by actress Lotta Crabtree as a gift to the city. To this day, the public and city leaders gather before dawn at the fountain — located at the nexus of Market, Kearny and Geary streets — to memorialize the 1906 earthquake and fire that killed thousands of residents and left hundreds of thousands homeless.

In second place was the Mechanics Monument, also known as the Mechanics Fountain, located at the intersection of Bush, Market and Battery streets. Sculptor Douglas Tilden was commissioned to create the

monument as part of the Market Street Beautification Project at the beginning of the 20th century. James Mervyn Donahue, the son of San Francisco industrial pioneer Peter Donahue, funded the project to honor his father’s legacy.

Residents’ final favorite memorials were to the Holocaust and Abraham Lincoln, and the Comfort Women memorial that honors the women who were forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II.

The survey was disseminated across the city and conducted in English, Filipino, Chinese and Spanish. The majority of the respondents identified as white and female in the 94110, 94117 and 94122 ZIP codes, according to the survey, which cost $25,000 to produce.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images 2005 The Christopher Columbus statue at Coit Tower was removed by city officials in 2020 to prevent protesters from damaging it.