{"id":312086,"date":"2026-08-02T21:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T21:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/312086\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T21:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T21:04:08","slug":"nyc-to-unveil-new-columbus-statue-as-group-sidesteps-mamdanis-middle-finger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/312086\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC to unveil new Columbus statue as group sidesteps Mamdani’s middle finger"},"content":{"rendered":"

They\u2019re trying to protect the paesan!<\/p>\n

A new nonprofit is planning to unveil a Christopher Columbus statue in Brooklyn this October \u2014 dodging Mayor Zohran Mamdani and other haters<\/a> who\u2019d rather cancel the Italian-born explorer.<\/p>\n

The Preserving Italian Heritage Coalition, brought together by Chinese-American state Assemblyman Lester Chang (R-Brooklyn), is planning to house the statue at the John Hughes Club in Dyker Heights, private property that keeps it out of the clutches of city officials.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m Chinese, but this is my community, too,\u201d said Chang, who was born on Eldridge Street in Manhattan and today represents Bensonhurst and Dyker Heights. The coalition is now looking to raise $100,000 to cover\u00a0construction and maintenance costs.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mayor Mamdani infamously posted a picture flipping off the historic explorer on X in 2020. @zohrankmamdani\/X<\/p>\n

Chang traces the idea to last November\u2019s election and to President Trump\u2019s Columbus Day proclamation<\/a> weeks earlier, which vowed to reclaim the explorer from \u201cleft-wing arsonists.\u201d He wrote the committee\u2019s first check himself, before there was a bank account to put it in.<\/p>\n

The Assemblyman said his father, who immigrated from China in 1924, was turned away from multiple jobs until an Italian restaurant in Liberty, New York put him to work.<\/p>\n

It was expected opposition from the Mamdani administration that had the coalition seek private grounds, Chang said.<\/p>\n

Mamdani, a democratic socialist, infamously gave the middle finger to a statue of Christopher Columbus in Queens and called for its removal in 2020, while he was serving as a state Assemblyman.<\/p>\n

The Assemblyman had initially looked at a park on 18th Avenue as a potential location for the statue but concluded it would take two years of city review with an eventual rejection likely at the end of the lengthy process.<\/p>\n

Assemblyman Lester Chang, who grew up near Little Italy and represents historically Italian-American neighborhoods like Bensonhurst, emphasized his own connections to the Italian-American community explaining why he spearheaded the movement. Preserving Italian-American, Heritage Coalition<\/p>\n

New York Young Republican Club President Stefano Forte, whose club has helped with early fundraising, welcomed the chance to bring a statue in despite other efforts to remove statues of the explorer.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt a time when Italian American history and culture are being erased by Mayor Mamdani, our club is highlighting one of the giants of American and Italian history, Christopher Columbus,\u201d Forte said.<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s office didn\u2019t reply to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Gregory Lendino, the coalition\u2019s treasurer, said Columbus was \u201can icon\u201d to Italians until very recently.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt didn\u2019t matter if you were Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal. He was just an icon that we rallied around.\u201d<\/p>\n

For committee member Lori Pedone, the project is incredibly personal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy grandparents would be ecstatic knowing that we\u2019re trying to preserve history,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

The coalition has a $100,000 fundraising goal to cover the remaining construction and estimated maintenance costs. Preserving Italian-American, Heritage Coalition<\/p>\n

\u201cMy son was recently married. Maybe my grandchildren will one day be able to see that statue and be proud of it as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group says its members don\u2019t plan on stopping with just the one statue.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The coalition wants to be a landing spot for removed monuments from elsewhere in the country <\/a>and said that private property was the best solution around potential red tape.<\/p>\n

Mayor Mamdani also caught flack from the Italian-American community after slighting Little Italy on a city-released map of immigrant neighborhoods. Admedia Photo \/ SplashNews.com<\/p>\n

Coalition members have discussed the possibility the new statue will be vandalized. The new structure will come with a base built wide enough so that a protective enclosure could be placed around it should problems arise.<\/p>\n

Lendino said that either way the statues were going up \u2014 it\u2019s what his family would do.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey came here and they built things,\u201d Lendino said. \u201cThey didn\u2019t tear things down.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They\u2019re trying to protect the paesan! A new nonprofit is planning to unveil a Christopher Columbus statue in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[98,852,58028,57,9,56,63,65,64,58,82],"class_list":["post-312086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-brooklyn","tag-christopher-columbus","tag-lester-chang","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-us-news","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}