The mayor announced the members of a commission who will recommend what to do about statues seen as “oppressive and inconsistent with the values of New York City.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio on Friday announced the members of a commission to recommend what to do about statues and other monuments in New York City that he has called “symbols of hate.”
But in doing so, the mayor seemed to backtrack from his initial vow: Instead of conducting a full review of hateful iconography, the commission would merely “develop guidelines on how the city should address monuments seen as oppressive and inconsistent with the values of New York City, ” according to a news release.
The commission, which will be headed by Tom Finkelpearl, the commissioner of cultural affairs, and Darren Walker, the president of the Ford Foundation, will also make recommendations for a “select few items” — but neither would say which those may be.
Mr. de Blasio had proclaimed on Twitter last month that he would create the commission, in the wake of the deadly white nationalist protest in Charlottesville, Va., and an intensifying national focus on calls to remove Confederate monuments .
His tweet prompted a cacophony of condemnation against a range of monuments, and persistent questions from reporters, which dogged the mayor as he campaigned for re-election ahead of Tuesday’s Democratic primary.
City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito called for the removal of the Christopher Columbus statue at Columbus Circle, because of the genocidal consequences for native peoples of his voyages to the Western Hemisphere — while Italian-Americans called just as loudly to keep the monument of the Italian-born explorer.
Others questioned the appropriateness of monuments to President Ulysses S. Grant — who briefly ordered the expulsion of Jews from several states during the Civil War; a statue of Dr. J. Marion Sims, a pioneering gynecologist who performed operations on enslaved black women without anesthesia or informed consent; and many others. Historians cautioned against moving rashly to alter monuments that are themselves artifacts and testaments to how we interpret history.
Mr. de Blasio’s initial Twitter burst, on Aug. 16, said that the commission would “review all symbols of hate on city property” within 90 days. One of the first things to be removed, he wrote, would be a plaque on Lower Broadway naming Philippe Pétain, the French World War I hero who was later reviled as a Nazi collaborator.
But once the magnitude of the blowback from his announcement became clear, Mr. de Blasio backpedaled, saying that he would not prejudge the fate of any monument. He was bombarded with questions about the Columbus statue and refused to say whether or not he favored its removal, while insisting that he was a proud Italian-American.
Mr. de Blasio did not speak publicly about the commission on Friday or make himself available to reporters.
“The issues are important and intense and I feel that having this incredible group of people around the table to talk about it is what we need to do, ” Mr. Finkelpearl said. “The city’s never had a policy to say how do you reasonably and logically address these kinds of controversies.”
Mr. Finkelpearl refused to say whether the Columbus statue would be among those reviewed, and both he and his co-chairman, Mr. Walker, refused to say what they thought should happen to the statue.
The commission includes 18 members chosen in part for their diversity — Hispanics, a Native American, whites, blacks, Asians, academics, artists, historians and others.
“I think that historically we’ re at an inflection point in American history where we need to reconcile our history and our future and monuments, memorials, markers are the manifestation of our culture and our identity as a people, ” Mr. Walker said.
But he recognized the thorniness of the mission.
“I certainly have been told that taking this on isn’ t advisable, ” he said with a laugh. “Friends have told me that taking on this commission will be a thankless task. That’s because you will not be able to please everyone.”
