Chicago Park District announces deal over Columbus statues lawsuit

A.D. Quig, Chicago Tribune on May 1, 2025

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CHICAGO — The Chicago Park District announced Thursday that it had reached a deal to end a lawsuit brought over the removal of Christopher Columbus statues from city parks during 2020 protests.

The city will loan the small Columbus statue removed from Arrigo Park in July 2020 to the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans, which is developing a museum honoring Italian immigrants in the city’s Little Italy neighborhood, according to a Park District news release.

The larger Columbus statue that previously stood in Grant Park won’t return to its former spot either. The Park District is instead removing the statue’s base, “restoring public access to this section of Grant Park, and facilitating a process to determine which new public art will call this corner of Grant Park home.”

“The Chicago Park District is committed to diversifying our statuary to ensure we are honoring Chicago’s rich history and diversity,” Parks CEO Carlos Ramirez-Rosa said in a release. “To that end, we look forward to convening the process to determine which Italian American will be honored at Arrigo Park, and which artworks will replace the Grant Park plinth.”

Ron Onesti, president of the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans, told the Tribune he had to speak with his attorneys before commenting Thursday afternoon.

The Park District and the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events will “lead a community engagement process” to pick another Italian honoree. After the Columbus pedestal is taken down, the Park District “will announce plans for a process to redesign the plaza as a gathering space that will accommodate temporary artworks.”

The statues were taken down amid bloody confrontations between police and protesters in 2020, and remained in storage while former Mayor Lori Lightfoot awaited a task force recommendation about what to do about those statues and others that were targeted by activists for honoring white supremacy or disrespecting Indigenous peoples. That report finally landed in 2022.

The Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans sued shortly after their removal, claiming the Park District broke a 1973 deal to display the statue in Arrigo Park. Lightfoot also removed a lesser-known statue in the South Chicago neighborhood.

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(Chicago Tribune’s Alice Yin contributed.)

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