BALTIMORE _ After protesters toppled a towering statue of Christopher Columbus and dumped it into Baltimore's Inner Harbor, a group of Italian Americans organized to fish the chunks of marble out of the water.
They moved what was left of the statue to a private warehouse for "safekeeping," far from the piazza where it stood for more than three decades. The group is now working to restore it to its original form.
Even so, city officials have decided that they will not be taking it back.
The Board of Estimates is poised to approve Wednesday a termination agreement that officially reverts ownership of the statue to Italian American Organizations United Inc., the group that gave it to Baltimore in 1984.
According to an agenda for Wednesday's meeting, city officials said the statue has artistic and historical significance and should be protected and preserved. But, they wrote, "public display on city property may not best serve those ends."
Cities across America have been reckoning in recent years with who they choose to honor and why. Baltimore removed its four Confederate-era monuments three years ago, and some believe monuments dedicated to Columbus should come down, too.
The 15th-century Italian explorer, who was long been credited in classrooms as a hero who discovered America, violently enslaved native people. The Baltimore protesters who tore down his statue on July 4 said they were demanding the removal of all monuments "honoring white supremacists, owners of enslaved people, perpetrators of genocide, and colonizers."
Bill Martin, an officer of Italian American Organizations United, said he understands people's views on Columbus have shifted.
For him, the statue is about honoring Italian American history locally. He said Columbus was a figure that Italian immigrants could look up to when they moved to America to start a new life. That was why it was important to him and others to "rescue" the statue from the water and raise money to restore it.
Martin said the statue pieces are in a secure location, away from Little Italy. He declined to be more specific.
His group hopes one day the monument will be publicly displayed again _ but Martin was not ready to discuss options yet. First, it is raising money to pay for an estimated $60,000 to $65,000 in repair costs.
The original agreement between the Italian American organization and the city required Baltimore to maintain the statue and pay for any repairs. It was signed in 1985 by then-Mayor William Donald Schaefer, a Democrat.
John Pica, a former Democratic state senator who leads the group, said he knows it would be difficult for the cash-strapped city to take on the restoration. The termination agreement releases it from that responsibility.
"We told the city that we'll do it, if they give us the statue," he said. "It didn't take much to get that done."
The Baltimore City Council is considering a bill to rename the Columbus Obelisk in Herring Run Park to honor victims of police brutality.
Democratic City Councilman Ryan Dorsey said during a recent hearing that his mother's family immigrated from Italy and that the bill is "not an attack on Italians."
Instead, he said, renaming the monument is a step toward "helping to right the ship that has been steered by white supremacy as a system for our country's entire history."
