As Philadelphia prepares to celebrate its third Indigenous Peoples Day, several monuments, statues, and commemorations of explorer Christopher Columbus remain throughout the city.
Despite a recent national movement to remove or recast them, the U.S. still had at least 149 monuments honoring the Italian explorer, per a 2021 audit from local art and history studio Monument Lab.
It’s a subject of intense debate, in Philly and elsewhere, as Columbus is held by some Italian Americans as a symbol of cultural pride, and seen by others as representative of the genocide and violent human rights abuses perpetrated against Indigenous peoples in the Americas.
There are not many monuments in Philadelphia to the Lenape people, the original inhabitants of the region, and scholars say many that do exist are based on inaccurate stereotypes. The Tedyuscung statue in Wissahickon Valley, for example, wears a Western Plains headdress rather than the traditional clothing used by the Lenape people, as does “The Medicine Man” statue in East Fairmount Park.
Members of the Lenape Nation say more education and honoring of the contemporary communities is an important step in reconciling historical gaps in representation.
Confronting the continued presence of Columbus in public spaces is part of that reckoning, local Indigenous leaders say — while some of Philly’s Italian American residents remain adamant Columbus remains an important figure who represents the discrimination Italian American immigrants faced after arriving in the U.S. some four hundred years after him.
Here’s a look at the most prominent markers to Christopher Columbus in Philadelphia, and an update on efforts to change them.
Columbus statue at Marconi Plaza
Perhaps the most well-known of these monuments in Philly, the 147-year-old marble Christopher Columbus statue in Marconi Plaza appears here to stay, at least for now.
