Five years after it was splattered with red paint, toppled and dragged into a lake, the bronze statue of Christopher Columbus that stood for nearly a century in a city park in Richmond, Virginia, has been fished out, restored and given a new home. It now gazes out at a bocce ball court outside a Sons of Italy lodge some 300 miles away in Blauvelt, New York.
Boston’s marble Columbus statue was beheaded in 2020 — its second decapitation. Repaired and given to the Knights of Columbus, it was moved to the garden of a nearby church, where it now stands among religious statues.
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From left: Frank Papik, John Corritone and Mike Pizzi gather in back of the Sons of Italy lodge in Orangeburg, N.Y. Sept. 24, 2025, the new home of a Christopher Columbus bronze statue that once stood in a Baltimore park before protesters dumped it into the Inner Harbor. Some of the more than 30 monuments to Columbus that were toppled or taken down in 2020 have been restored and found new, usually less public, homes. (Scott Rossi/The New York Times)
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The studio of Tilghman Hemsley, who used pieces of a marble Christopher Columbus statue that stood at a park in Baltimore, before it was destroyed by protesters, to guide his creation of two replicas, at his studio in Centreville, Md., Oct. 3, 2025. Some of the more than 30 monuments to Columbus that were toppled or taken down in 2020 have been restored and found new, usually less public, homes. (Caroline Gutman/The New York Times)
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John Corritone points out flecks of red paint on the Christopher Columbus bronze statue that once stood in a Richmond, Va., park before protesters splashed it with red paint and dragged it into a lake, in Orangeburg, N.Y. Sept. 24, 2025. Some of the more than 30 monuments to Columbus that were toppled or taken down in 2020 have been restored and found new, usually less public, homes. (Scott Rossi/The New York Times)
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Tilghman Hemsley, who used pieces of a marble Christopher Columbus statue that stood at a park in Baltimore, before it was destroyed by protesters, to guide his creation of two replicas, at his studio in Centreville, Md., Oct. 3, 2025. Some of the more than 30 monuments to Columbus that were toppled or taken down in 2020 have been restored and found new, usually less public, homes. (Caroline Gutman/The New York Times)
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