[Unveiled 1892]
1451-1506 b. Genoa, Italy • d. Valladolid, Spain
Sculptor: Gaetano Russo • Italy
Donated by Italians in U.S. through
subscriptions raised by newspaper,
Il Progresso the city's largest-circulation
foreign-language daily newspaper.
Situated in the center of Columbus Circle at the southwest perimeter of Central Park is a
magnificent towering marble statue of
Christopher Columbus. The Italian mariner is
rewarded here with the distinction of being
the first European to have crossed the
Atlantic ocean. Three ships depicted on the
column that carries him aloft represent the
Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, the
ships he commanded into the unknown in 1492.
At its base is a fountain with an angel holding a
globe. Four hundred years after his initial
journey, this statue of Columbus was unveiled
and presented by Italy to the United States to
commemorate his voyage.
It is here, however, that the facts of history
collide with the nobility of the gesture that
placed him here in such a prominent place
before the world. It is here at the point where
Broadway intersects Central Park South,
Central Park West and Eight Avenue that
truth collides with fiction. One can only
speculate at thispoint in time if the explorer's
courage in pursuing his vision, in challenging
the terrifying unknown, in opening the Atlantic
to future exploration alone justifies the tribute
or whether there are other considerations,
which make it problematic.
Columbus believed he had discovered a route to
the east, but his journey was a disappointing
failure. It did not provide him with the wealth
he had imagined nor in fact the gold he had
promised the Queen of Spain who had financed
his voyage.
Desperate to make good on his vow of riches
he enslaved the population of his conquered
territory and forced men, women and children
to search for the precious metal. When the
natives would or could not comply with his
demands he tortured, mutilated and murdered
them in such large numbers that they eventually
vanished from existence.
Columbus now stands atop a monument on a
70-foot granite column with bronze reliefs at a
place where many of the spiritual descendants
of those he enslaved and slaughtered pass on a
daily basis.
