Legal showdown over the fate of Pittsburgh's Christopher Columbus statue drags on
By Tim Grant / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
As Pittsburgh’s Bloomfield neighborhood celebrated Christopher Columbus with a parade over the weekend, a bitter legal battle over the fate of a statue erected in his honor remains in limbo.
The 13-foot, 800-pound bronze and granite statue of the famous Italian explorer in Schenley Park has been at the heart of a standoff between the city, which wants to tear it down, and the local Italian American community, which wants to preserve it.
“Rather than respecting and preserving history, the city is attempting to erase it,” said Basil Russo, president of the Downtown-based Italian Sons & Daughters of America.
What began in 2020, when cities across the country re-examined monuments tied to racial injustice, has stretched into a yearslong debate as to whether Pittsburgh’s monument will join the dozens of others that have been removed or toppled across the country in recent years.
The memorial to the 15th-century explorer has been fully or partially covered since it became the target of vandals in the summer of 2020. The city’s previous Art Commission recommended its removal at the time, a move endorsed by then-Mayor Bill Peduto.
With the push for the statue’s removal came pushback, and the ISDA filed a lawsuit in October 2020.
In 2022, Common Pleas Judge John McVay Jr. dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that Pittsburgh officials had the right to remove the divisive statue. The judge’s decision relied heavily on U.S. Supreme Court case law, specifically a case out of Pleasant Grove, Utah, in which officials there rejected a proposed religious monument in a city park.
In an October 2023 hearing, the ISDA appealed Judge McVay’s ruling, arguing that a 1955 ordinance was voted on and passed allowing the statue to be built, so therefore an ordinance must be voted on and passed for the monument to be removed.
Attorneys for the city argued that the original agreement to place the statue in Schenley Park is not an ordinance, but rather a resolution, and that the mayor has the authority to change or dismiss the agreement without council approval.
In April, a state appellate court reversed Judge McVay’s decision and sent the case back to Allegheny County, where it remains awaiting another court date.
“That was a big victory for us,” Mr. Russo said.
At a stalemate
When the ISDA filed the lawsuit, it hired Philadelphia lawyer George Bochetto, who has a reputation for stopping cities from removing Columbus statues. He previously blocked the removal of two statues and an obelisk honoring the explorer in Philadelphia, and he stopped another statue removal in Syracuse, N.Y.
“I was successful on all of them. So, I started getting calls from Italian Americans in other cities, and I kind of took it on as a cause,” he said.
Mr. Bochetto said he also has consulted on statue cases in Columbus, Ohio; Chicago and Boston. He said the Pittsburgh case is remarkable because city officials won’t come to the negotiating table.
“I’m outraged that the mayor [of Pittsburgh] refuses to even discuss the matter,” Mr. Bochetto said, adding that city lawyers have told him Mayor Ed Gainey “has no intention of meeting with anybody about this issue.”
“He wants the statue ripped out of the ground,” Mr. Bochetto said.
Mr. Gainey’s office did not return requests for comment.
Across the country in 2020, historical statues were under attack, and it wasn’t just Columbus. Protesters wanted to take down George Washington and Thomas Jefferson statues because they owned slaves, and other figures like Jefferson Davis for his role in the Confederacy during the Civil War.
Protesters in some cities and towns took it upon themselves to behead the statues, spray-paint them or topple them with ropes.
A complicated history
Native American activists and others have long seen Columbus as a villain ultimately responsible for enslaving indigenous people and stealing their land.
Others see Columbus, who is credited with discovering America in 1492, as a courageous explorer who pushed frontiers.
When Columbus Day became a national holiday in 1937, the annual parades and the statues that sprang up across the country were embraced by Italian American communities as a badge of acceptance in a nation that had been hostile to many Italian immigrants.
Mr. Russo said the ISDA wants a resolution to the statue issue that will prevent a divisive outcome where one community wins and another loses.
He said the ISDA submitted a settlement proposal wherein the Columbus statue will remain in Schenley Park and the Native American community would be encouraged to erect a statue of one of their own heroes nearby, for which the ISDA would be willing to contribute funds.
Furthermore, Mr. Russo said the ISDA will build an onsite audio facility that provides the public with educational information about why Columbus is important to the Italian American community, and why the Native American statue is important for their community.
“The problem with these issues all along is people aren’t communicating with each other,” Mr. Russo said. “A lot of misinformation is being promulgated that causes people to take offense with one another.
“We want to promote understanding and mutual respect. How could anybody be opposed to that, and not want to sit down and discuss it? It makes no sense to us.”