Washington’s newest outdoor sculpture is likely to look familiar to many Baltimoreans who visited the Inner Harbor before 2020. The sculpture is a statue of Christopher Columbus that was placed on the grounds of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House over the week end. It’s a replica of the statue that was mounted on a pedestal near Little Italy in 1984 and tossed into Baltimore’s harbor by protestors in July of 2020. The statue is one of several that have appeared around the White House recently to commemorate figures that President Donald Trump regards as heroes, along with depictions of Alexander Hamilton and Benjamin Franklin. “In this White House, Christopher Columbus is a hero, and President Trump will ensure he’s honored as such for generations to come,” the White House posted on X. Dedicated in 1984 The original statue, carved from Italian Carrara marble by sculptor Mauro Bigarani, was commissioned by the Italian American Organizations United Inc. of Baltimore and dedicated on Oct. 8, 1984, in a ceremony attended by then-President Ronald Reagan. For decades it was the centerpiece of a public plaza just south of the Scarlett Place condominium building at 250 S. President St. The statue was torn off its pedestal and thrown into the Lower Jones Falls on July 4, 2020, by protestors as part of the Black Lives Matter protests following the death of George Floyd, a Minneapolis resident who died after a police officer knelt on his neck and back for more than nine minutes. The protestors lassoed the top of the statue and yanked it off its base, causing it to break into pieces. They then rolled the body of the statue and other fragments to the inlet near where the Lower Jones Falls meets the Inner Harbor and threw the pieces into the water. No one was ever arrested.  It was one of more than 30 incidents in which statues and monuments around the country were vandalized that summer. Broken pieces of the statue were fished out of the water by the Italian American group, headed by John Pica, a Maryland lobbyist and former state senator who was born in Little Italy. Pica’s group commissioned Maryland sculptor Will Hemsley to create a replica for display in a location where it wouldn’t be vandalized. Pica’s group has worked for several years to find a suitable spot for the replica. Members were reluctant to put it back on its original pedestal, given what happened before. “We have to find a place to put that statue,” Pica said during a meeting of the Little Italy Neighborhood Association (LINA) in 2024. “We offered it to Father [Bernard] Carman [at St. Leo the Great Roman Catholic Church in Little Italy], who is afraid of the controversy. We’ve offered it to others. They really don’t want the controversy. So we’re really looking for an appropriate place to put it.” New home Last fall, the Trump administration expressed interest in displaying the replica in Washington and the Maryland group gave it to the White House for that purpose. “We’re delighted the statue has found a place where it can peacefully shine and be protected,” the Associated Press quoted Pica as saying. The pedestal where the original statue stood, meanwhile, remains empty. Pica’s group has begun discussions with LINA and others to determine what can take its place. The group has commissioned Baltimore-based sculptor Sebastian Martorana to explore ideas. ...read more read less