Both supporters and opponents of the statue of Christopher Columbus in Syracuse's Columbus Circle held separate ceremonies on Oct. 12 at the monument to acknowledge both Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples Day.
In the ongoing debate, Syracuse's Italian community sees the statue as a symbol of Italian heritage, while opponents see the Christopher Columbus statue as a symbol of colonial oppression against Native Americans.
The Columbus Monument Corporation held its annual wreath-laying ceremony in a late-morning event to mark the 92nd anniversary of the statue overlooking Columbus Circle.
Nick Pirro, vice president of the Columbus Monument Corporation, said the local Italian community gave the statue to the city as a gift back in 1934.
"It's a beautiful, beautiful piece of art. It's history. It's the heritage, and .... it was their gift and we that very strongly you shouldn't take away history," says Pirro.
Besides his role with the Columbus Monument Corporaton, Pirro is also a former Onondaga County executive.
In October 2020, former Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh announced plans to remove the statue from Columbus Circle and to have the space redeveloped into a "Heritage Park" to honor both Italian Americans and Indigenous peoples.
"Hopefully, the current mayor and other people will come to the point of saying, 'look, let's all sit down and work this out and move on,'" Pirro said. "I've lived in the city all my life. We got a lot of problems in the city and we need to address those and stop monkeying around with trying to take statues down."
The Onondaga Historical Association in September selected three finalists in a contest to redesign Columbus Circle, an effort that the Columbus Monument Corporation opposes.
Later in the day, the groups "Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation" (NOON) and We of Italian and Syracuse Heritage (WISH-CNY) held an evening vigil for Indigenous Peoples' Day. The groups are calling for the removal of the Columbus statue and envisioning a public space that they say "more fully acknowledges the city's history and diverse communities."
The event included speakers, music, art, history, and calls for justice.
Andy Mager, co-founder of NOON, said that the groups don't oppose Columbus as a human being, They just don't believe he should be celebrated and lifted up in the center of Syracuse because of his violent role in the colonization of the Caribbean and the Americas.
"And instead, what we're calling for is that the statue come down and this collective space be used to celebrate all the peoples and cultures who have made Central New York their homes, starting with the Onondaga Nation and then all of the immigrants who have come here ... the Italians, the Gernans, the Africans, the Asians, people from all over the world all deserve to be recognized and lifted up," Mager said.
Some people attending the vigil held a long white-colored banner that read "Columbus didn't discover anything - thousands of native nations were already here"
A speaker at the vigil told the crowd that design teams will hold a public viewing of their concepts to redevelop Columbus Circle into Heritage Park on Nov. 10 at St. Paul's Church in downtown Syracuse.
Mager said Columbus came to what is now the Dominican Republic and Haiti. "He attacked people. He enslaved people and claimed the land for the Kingdom of Spain. There were millions of people living on those islands and in North America who had fine lives, communities, governments, ways of life, and Columbus came with this idea that none of that had any validity ... that Europeans, because of the Christian church had the right to take over and occupy those lands and control people. And as an individual, he raped women. He caused terrible destruction on the islands that he visited."
Mager also noted that Columbus was once arrested and imprisoned for what he had done.
