COLUMBUS, Ohio — Columbus city leaders are still trying to come up with a plan on the best way to display a Christopher Columbus statue that was removed from City Hall three years ago.
The statue once sat on the Broad Street side of City Hall before it was put in storage. In June 2020, Mayor Andrew Ginther said the statue did not represent the city's values.
The city is now looking for a different way to display the statue.
Jennifer Fening, a deputy director in the city's Department of Development, said with a $2 million grant from the Mellon Foundation, the city will help bring the community together to collaborate on a design to explain Columbus' legacy as it is understood today.
Landa Masdea Brunetto said the decision to bring down the statue was painful to every Italian because of what the statue represents to the Italian-American community in Columbus.
Her family has a connection to the statue, which was gifted to the city from the city of Genoa, Italy in 1955.
"My dad and grandfather stayed up all night making the washers that were missing to place on the statue," Brunetto said.
While Brunetto says she understands the arguments against Columbus, she wants to make sure the new display will be fair to him while telling the whole story.
Fening said the city is building a team of historians and consultants on diversity and inclusion. In addition, the city is working with an indigenous architecture firm and will be taking public input. She adds it will be a two-year project to come up with the design for the new statue display.
The statue will stay in storage until a decision is made.