Christopher Columbus Square

Christopher Columbus Square park located in Queens, New York. The City acquired this park in 1910, and the Board of Aldermen named it Columbus Square in 1930. Angelo Racioppi created the bronze statue with funds from the New York City Works Progress Administration Art Project. It depicts a youthful Columbus at the helm of a ship, and it is set on an angular cast stone base suggestive of a boat prow. Dedicated on October 12, 1941, the artwork provoked a public feud between Queens Borough President George U. Harvey and Parks Commissioner Robert Moses (1888-1981).

At a May 1941 meeting of the Board of Estimate in which plans for the statue were discussed, Harvey referred to Moses as an “appointed official who couldn’t be elected as dogcatcher.” Moses responded in a letter, “I have no thought of running against you for dogcatcher. The job is right up your alley.” Later, Moses wrote, “We don’t think the statue looks like anything we have read about Columbus, or that as a piece of symbolism it represents anything associated with Columbus. On the other hand, just as a piece of sculpture without any particular significance, it is not objectionable.” Harvey replied, “Anything Moses doesn’t design himself, he thinks is no good.”

This statue of Columbus is one of five located in New York City parks; the others are in Central Park and Columbus Circle, Manhattan, Columbus Park, Brooklyn, and D’Auria Murphy Park in the Bronx. The park and monument are often the focal point of the local Columbus Day parade and attendant festivities.