Preserve Columbus monument as ’a museum for the public’ (Your Letters)

To the Editor:
Syracuse’s Columbus Monument is an artistic, historic and cultural memorial that must be preserved. The designer, architect Dwight James Baum, had a national reputation and was even awarded a gold medal for his work by the American Institute of Architects. The arrangement of the monument, the Columbus statue and the ancillary sculptures, are all of superior design and execution. In my study of memorial and commemorative monuments (a five-volume work published in 2017), I include several Columbus monuments, both in America (New York City, Baltimore, and San Juan), and abroad (those in Barcelona, and Madrid). Baum’s overall design, and the sculptures, are as good as the best. Any such high-quality work becomes a “museum for the public,” worthy of special care.
The Columbus Monument is also an important monument to history. Columbus’s “discovery” of America was certainly a turning point, expanding Europe’s vision and knowledge of the world. It enriched Spain, brought wide-ranging new plants and foodstuffs to Europe, and helped change the balance of power between Spain and its neighbors and rivals. It inaugurated centuries of world exploration (and exploitation).
This is also a vital cultural monument. The impact of Columbus’s adventure was profound: He was sent, of course, both on a “voyage of discovery” to seek riches, but also to spread the Catholic faith — sent, after all, by their “most Catholic majesties” of Spain. It had a profound influence, especially in Central and South America, for the next 500 years. And the fact that Columbus was Italian — a country that had been a center of artistic, cultural, and historic influence for over a thousand years — is significant in itself. The monument was instigated in large part by the Italian and Catholic population of Syracuse. That the monument to adventure — and exploitation — is located in front of the Catholic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception sets up a sort of dialogue between the meaning of exploration, enlarging one’s world view, and colonizing a continent — and the Propagation of the Faith.
Some people wish to remove Columbus from his pedestal; but its existence here, despite a fraught history, is a perfect icon for cultural rumination. Take the recent mania for destroying Civil War monuments in the Southern states, which I feel is a grave mistake. These monuments are, in fact, essential for understanding history: don’t such monuments drive home to viewers that the South’s aim of perpetuating slavery was an utter failure? Such monuments are proof, and a constant reminder, that the effort was a disastrous mistake.
Syracuse‘s Columbus Monument is also a meaningful “talisman of history” — reminding us of the unexpected complexity of human activities. That it stands in front of a Catholic church helps set up a cultural dialogue regarding the fraught history of Columbus’ “discovery” of America in a direct and meaningful way.
Daniel D. Reiff
Auburn
The writer is an architectural historian and SUNY Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in SUNY Fredonia’s Department of Visual Arts.