New York City’s Public Design Commission voted unanimously in October to remove the statue from the legislative chamber at City Hall by the end of the year after four lawmakers testified that his status as a slaveholder was offensive to the council’s African American members. The commission initially attempted to vote on the statue’s removal without a public hearing.
“Removing a monument without a public conversation about why it’s happening is useless. New Yorkers all need to talk about who we want to honor and why,” said Erin Thompson, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who authored the forthcoming book “Smashing Statues: The Rise and Fall of America’s Public Monuments.
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According to The New York Post, a dozen workers from Marshall Fine Arts packed up the 884-pound statue of Jefferson and placed him in a wooden crate Monday.
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About a dozen workers with Marshall Fine Arts spent several hours carefully removing the painted plaster monument from its pedestal inside the City Council chambers and surrounding it with sections of foam and wooden boards.
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They then lowered the massive structure down the stairs leading to the building’s first-floor rotunda with a pulley system and ushered the Founding Father out the back door.
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The statue is due to be transported to the New York Historical Society as a long-term loan.
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The outlet further stated that Keri Butler, executive director commission that voted to remove the 1833 statue, attempted to block the press from observing the removal but yielded after the mayor’s office and City Council intervened.
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The original bronze statue, sculpted by Pierre-Jean David, remains on display in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, DC. The replica was a gift to the city by naval officer Uriah Phillips Levy in 1834, the country’s first Jewish Naval commodore and an admirer of Jefferson’s belief in religious freedom.
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According to The New York Times, "The painted plaster version was later donated to New Yorkers and arrived at City Hall around 1834. When it first arrived in New York, Levy charged to view it and used the proceeds to feed the poor. It was installed in the City Council Chamber in the 1910s."
Several other Jefferson statues around the U.S. have been removed or destroyed since the George Floyd riots, including Georgia and Oregon.
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