The courts have ruled that the Ben Walsh cannot take down the historic Syracuse Columbus Monument. Our deepest gratitude to each and every one of you for your help, support, faith, pride and courage to stand. Our legal team (all pro bono) did a fantastic job, and will likely now be sought by other groups like ours to help save their local monuments.
Time for everyone to come together and pursue the additive approach to Syracuse’s public art. Enough taxpayer money has been wasted. Let’s put it to good use.
From Local SYR.com: “Walsh clarified what he thinks isn’t clear: “We are building a more comprehensive, inclusive heritage park around it, but that monument is always going to be dedicated to our Italian American community and we need Italian Americans at the table to make sure what happens there is what they want.””
What we want, Mr. Mayor, is for you to build the Heritage Park (and we will help) but LEAVE OUR MONUMENT ALONE!
The Post-Standard editorial board’s recent full-bore attack on the Columbus Circle’s very existence was to be expected as that has been the media’s methodology in Onondaga County (”Choose healing over division. Remove Syracuse’s Columbus statue,” Oct. 10, 2021). I feel it’s important to fill in some of the blanks.
First, Mayor Ben Walsh and our esteemed media would never go after any other ethnic group as they have the Italians. Syracuse, as well as cities across the country, have been set ablaze both literally and figuratively by a variety of groups for the better part of two years and counting — but reaction to all this rampaging has been practically nil.
Second, Syracuse University’s shadow group of professors has played a more direct role in this affair than the members of the Italian community have. Once it was a fait accompli, Walsh presented it that way.
Then, the Onondaga Nation felt that as Indigenous people, they should have a say. There are 365 days in a year, but for them only Columbus Day will do. Interesting how seldom it is mentioned that tribes living between Albany and Waterloo were often paid by the French and then the British to make war and kill the settlers. I guess that would make them as “unpure” as we Italians.
Third, most important — that statue and the plot of ground on which it stands were paid for by struggling people like my grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts, and practically every relative I ever loved. They saved and they gave; not one penny came from the taxpayers, the accepted funding method in this “brave new world” we now inhabit.
It would be tedious to remind everyone that Italians were discriminated against from their arrival up to and including World War II when the North Side’s sons signed up in droves to defend a country they loved, but which often didn’t love them.
Lastly, spare me the quislings. They are always available and on tap from the beginning until the end of every debatable incident.
Extraordinary humanitarian work at their organization In My Father’s Kitchen
John and Leigh Ann Tumino help to lay a wreath at the annual Columbus Monument ceremony on Columbus Day. Their exemplar community service was recognized with the Pirro Family Santa Maria Award at the annual luncheon, attended by over 400.
