CHICAGO (WLS) — Despite a recent settlement, controversy continues over the Christopher Columbus statue that was removed from Arrigo Park.
The Chicago Park District has reached a settlement last week in a lawsuit filed over the removal of the Near West Side statue.
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While a judge still needs to sign off on the deal, plans are set to move the Columbus statue that was in Arrigo Park indoors while a different statue could return to where it was removed.
On Sunday, some Italian-American residents gathered at the former site of the statue to blast the deal.
“This statue that was taken down is gong to be brought into a building, where it’s gonna be hidden from the public,” former neighborhood resident Carlo Vaniglia said. “To me, that’s hiding history.”
The Arrigo Park statue will be loaned to the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans, and the committee plans to plans to put it on display inside a new museum.
The statue was one of three Christopher Columbus statues that Chicago removed in 2020 during a wave of protests.
The city removed a statue from the Near West Side’s Arrigo Park in July of 2020. The removal became the focus of a longstanding lawsuit due to a 1968 agreement between the Chicago Park District and the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans.
“We had the right to have a say if it was ever amended in any way, changed, if it was ever moved,” said Ron Onesti, President of the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans. “And, once it was moved, that’s when we made the lawsuit.”
The Joint Civic Committee of Italians Americans sued the city over the removal in 2021.
That lawsuit is ending nearly five years after former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot had the controversial statues taken down and put in storage.
Both sides have now reached an agreement for the city to loan its former Arrigo Park statue to the JCCIA. It will soon be housed in a building that’s being redeveloped into a Chicago museum for Italian immigrants on the corner of West Taylor Street and South Laflin Street in Little Italy.
The Chicago Park District says they plan to engage with the community to commission a statue replacement at Arrigo Park that will honor Italian-American heritage. Onesti said he wants it to be a statue honoring Mother Cabrini, a patron saint who helped Italian immigrants in the neighborhood.
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