Nearly six years to the day after protesters yanked down Baltimore’s Christopher Columbus statue and threw it into the Jones Falls, a group representing area Italian Americans has raised enough money to put a new monument in its place.

But it won’t be another version of the Italian navigator.

The new white marble statue, titled “Anonymous Italian Immigrant Family Memorial,” will depict an Italian immigrant husband alongside his wife holding their infant child, stand seven feet tall and is expected to be completed by the end of 2027.

“It demonstrates the determination and resiliency of the Italian American community, while at the same time it preserves a legacy that younger Italian Americans and others can admire,” said John A. Pica Jr., president of the Italian American Organizations United, at an announcement ceremony on Wednesday.

The marble statue of Columbus, which stood at the intersection of President Street and Eastern Avenue near the city’s Little Italy neighborhood, was torn down by a group of people on the night of July 4, 2020.

It happened amid the nationwide surge of Black Lives Matter protests following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. Scores of monuments with ties to slavery, white supremacy and the genocide of Native Americans were destroyed by protesters or removed by local leaders.

The search for a new statue was immediately underway. Pica’s group began working with then-1st District Councilman Zeke Cohen, along with members of the Black, Jewish and Native American communities, to find common ground on a proper replacement.

“It was just meetings back and forth and we just wanted something sort of neutral” to replace the previous statue, said Bill Martin, past president of the Associated Italian American Charities of Maryland.

• Goodbye, Columbus (7/4/20)

They eventually chose to depict a man and woman holding their baby dressed in early 1900s clothes. The project was jump-started by $140,000 in state grant funding and met its fundraising goal of more than $200,000 needed to begin construction.

Plans include the installation of three plaques. One will be dedicated to the history of Little Italy and the Black and Jewish communities before them, and to the Native Americans who preceded them all.

Another plaque will host the names of donors and local officials.

A third plaque will honor the D’Alesandro family, including Thomas D’Alesandro Jr. and Thomas D’Alesandro III, both former mayors of Baltimore, and Nancy Pelosi, former U.S. House speaker and daughter of Thomas D’Alesandro Jr.

Depictions of Columbus’ voyage will remain since the pedestal that held the previous statue, which depicts Columbus’ three ships and includes the words, “In Commemoration of the Discovery of America,” will not be altered as part of the replacement.

Sebastian Martorano, the artist commissioned to sculpt the new statue, said the decision to maintain the base was to “keep it about people being close, both psychologically and physiologically, in the same space.”

Epicenter of Anger

Long a point of pride for some in the city, the statue symbolized colonialism and oppression to others. (A pair of fake severed hands someone had draped around the statue’s white marble neck in 2019 was a reference to how the navigator is said to have dismembered those in the local population who did not bring back enough gold to the sailors who had enslaved them.)

In the days before the Columbus statue was toppled, a group known as Baltimore Bloc had warned that people would do just that.

The Italian-American community called on then-Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young to protect or remove the city-owned statue lest it be destroyed. Young told them no.

• Supporters want to move Little Italy ‘s Columbus statue before activists tear it down (7/3/20)

They had been hoping Young would do as his predecessor Catherine Pugh did three years earlier when a similar threat hung over Baltimore’s Confederate statues – Pugh had them taken down and carted away in the dark of night. But Young took no action.

An angry crowd of about 250 people converged on Columbus Park, lassoed the statue with ropes and easily pulled it down, causing it to break into several pieces which were then dragged across the plaza and dumped in the water. The crowd whooped and cheered.

Divers reclaimed the broken bits of the statue which were eventually turned over from the city to IAOU and placed in storage.

A replica created by the group, on loan to the Trump administration, was installed on the grounds of the White House in March.

Addressing about 50 people Wednesday, Pica described the security measures planned to protect the Anonymous Italian Immigrants statue once it’s up.

It will be anchored to the podium with a fixed steel rod. Security cameras will operate 24 hours a day, and the fence currently surrounding the base will remain in place.

A former state senator who now lobbies in Annapolis, Pica had words for those who knocked the 15th century explorer off his marble pedestal.

“I hope these kids that did this six years ago have had a chance to mature and appreciate just how stupid and ignorant they were for doing what they did,” he remarked.

Pica said that since the group met with the community to decide together what to pick to replace Columbus, they do not expect there to be any issues.

“We were insulted when they tore the statue down, so we’re very happy, elated that we’ve reached this point,” he told The Brew. “Now we just have to wait for it to get done. The next celebration will be the installation.”