\u201cI want the Bears to stay in Soldier Field. \u2026 I want the Sox to stay in Bridgeport,\u201d Bonomi said. \u201cI hate losing Chicago.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the choice marks a resolution to a controversy marred by city politics, public debate and legal pushback, it\u2019s a complicated outcome for some Little Italy residents and local Italian Americans.<\/p>\n
Though Cabrini, an Italian immigrant who went on to become the first American canonized by the Catholic Church, is a welcome memorialization, there are those who still lament the loss of the Columbus monument \u2014 and are holding out hope that one day, it can return.<\/p>\n
Chicago\u2019s Columbus statues in Grant and Arrigo Park came down<\/a> after activists forcibly attempted to remove the prominent statue in 2020, leading to violent clashes between police and protesters<\/a>. Another was later removed in South Chicago.<\/a><\/p>\n Columbus has been condemned by activists around the country who point to the Italian explorer\u2019s mistreatment of Indigenous people after he landed in the Americas in 1492. In recent years, especially, he\u2019s been recognized as a primary example of Western Europe\u2019s conquest of the New World, its resources and its native peoples.<\/p>\n But many Italian Americans prize statues of the explorer as an expression of their mainstream American identity.<\/p>\n The popular HBO series \u201cThe Sopranos,\u201d about an Italian American mob boss, aired a scene on the topic in 2002. Tony Soprano\u2019s son reads a school history book with his parents.\u00a0\u201cThey would make fine servants,\u201d he reads aloud. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t sound like a slave trader to you?\u201d<\/p>\n Tony Soprano (played by the late James Gandolfini) sits next to him. \u201cSo you finally read a book and it\u2019s bull\u2014-,\u201d he says. \u201cHe discovered America is what he did, he was a brave Italian explorer. And in this house Columbus is a hero.\u201d<\/p>\n Amid public debate about race in America in 2020, Columbus came under renewed scrutiny as statues across the U.S. were pulled down. By 2021, 130 cities across the country<\/a> had replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day.<\/p>\n Chicago\u2019s Columbus monuments remained in storage after their removal while former Mayor Lori Lightfoot awaited an ambitious review for controversial city monuments<\/a> in what she said would be \u201ca racial healing and historical reckoning project.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2022, the verdict was released. It recommended the statues remain gone<\/a> and flagged others, including Mississippi River explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet and early Chicago settler John Kinzie for removal, for honoring white supremacy or disrespecting Indigenous peoples.<\/p>\n But the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans, which represents over 60 Italian American organizations in Chicago, sued the Chicago Park District<\/a>, claiming it broke a 1973 deal to display the Columbus statue in Arrigo Park. Created for and displayed in the Italian Pavilion at the 1893 World\u2019s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, the Arrigo Park statue had stood at its location near Loomis Street since 1966.<\/p>\n \u201cChristopher Columbus in 1893 became a symbol of hope for Italians in America. It\u2019s like the Italian statue of liberty,\u201d JCCIA President Ron Onesti recently told the Tribune following the decision to create a statue of Cabrini.<\/p>\n Nearly four years into the legal battle, the Park District announced last May that it had reached a deal<\/a> with the JCCIA to end the lawsuit. Under the deal, the Park District agreed to loan the Arrigo Park statue to the committee for a planned Italian immigrant museum on Taylor Street. Meanwhile, the larger Grant Park statue\u2019s base was cleared away.<\/p>\n As for Arrigo Park, city officials launched a public vote in January to pick another Italian honoree to replace Columbus, with candidates including physicist Enrico Fermi and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Cabrini won, with 1,500 of 3,900 total submissions. Sunday, March 1<\/a>, is the deadline for artists to submit proposals for the design.<\/p>\n Best known as Mother Cabrini, the saint once walked among the people of Chicago<\/a>. A daughter of Italian farmers \u2014 and one of 13 children in her family \u2014 she had dreams of serving as a missionary from a young age. She went on to start her own order in Italy, Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and in 1889 immigrated to America to expand her mission. She first went to New York, then to Chicago.<\/p>\n Cabrini\u2019s ministry was relentless until her death at age 67. On her path to sainthood, she founded dozens of schools, orphanages, hospitals, convents and places of worship across the Americas. She dedicated her life to helping the sick, poor and less fortunate, and was a fearless advocate for Italian immigrants.<\/p>\n \u201cMother Cabrini really embodies what I call the soul of Chicago,\u201d Mayor Brandon Johnson said last week.<\/p>\n Bittersweet<\/p>\n Since the new statue was announced, the reaction among the city\u2019s Italian community has been \u201cbittersweet,\u201d Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans President Ron Onesti told the Tribune.<\/p>\n Nella Ferrara Davy, third-generation owner of Ferrara Bakery in Little Italy, also maintained in a written statement to the Tribune that the Columbus statue should be returned to its original location rather than kept behind closed doors.<\/p>\n \u201cAs most people in the community feel, the Columbus statue never should have been taken down,\u201d she wrote. That said, Davy added that Cabrini is \u201cextremely worthy of her own statue and should have one for all she has done and for her ties to the neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n For nearly 90 years, Arrigo Park was next to the former St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Hospital, which Cabrini\u2019s order purchased and built in 1910. The hospital closed in 1997 and was later converted into residences known as Columbus on the Park.<\/p>\n Davy said the Cabrini statue should be installed in addition to Columbus, not as a replacement.<\/p>\n Seeing Columbus back in Arrigo Park again would be ideal for Paul Basile, too. The longtime editor of Fra Noi, a Chicago-area magazine that focuses on the region\u2019s Italian American community, said in an email that in the \u201cbest of all possible worlds,\u201d the statue would be returned to its pedestal. But he added that he understood \u201cwhy that would never happen within the confines of the Johnson administration.\u201d<\/p>\n Given the current political climate, he said, having a statue of Cabrini at Arrigo and the Columbus statue in the pending Taylor Street museum is the \u201cbest possible outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n Onesti and the JCCIA are heading the museum effort. The new facility will celebrate and study the history and contributions made by Italians and Italian Americans in Chicago, the committee said in a news release. The Columbus statue will be part of an exhibit dedicated to Arrigo Park and the monument\u2019s presence in the 1893 World\u2019s Fair. The museum is expected to be completed in the next four months, Onesti said.<\/p>\n Ultimately, Onesti said the committee wants Columbus back in Arrigo Park \u201cat all costs.\u201d Still, while the committee continues to fight, \u201chaving someone of the stature of Cabrini is a huge plus to the community,\u201d Onesti said.<\/p>\n \u201cFor now, the Cabrini statue will go there,\u201d he said. \u201cI mean, rather than have somebody who wasn\u2019t representing Italian heritage, well, of course, this is a much better solution for us.\u201d<\/p>\n Neighborhood ties<\/p>\n For Bonomi, losing the Columbus statue is like \u201cstripping the identity of the neighborhood,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Yet for all the buzz the statue\u2019s caused, Bonomi \u2014 a father of two young children, who owns Coalfire and Peanut Park Trattoria restaurants on the North and West Side \u2014 said there\u2019s \u201cmore important things to worry about.\u201d And to him, whose grandfather came from Italy to Virginia before settling in Chicago, Cabrini\u2019s replacement is a \u201cgood choice.\u201d<\/p>\n For the old-timers in the neighborhood, though, whom Bonomi knows by name and often greets in his restaurant, \u201cthey 1000% want the statue back,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n From a preservation standpoint, Peter Gordon wants to see a reinstallation because the statue felt like the landmark of the neighborhood, but the long-term Little Italy resident also recognized it\u2019s a \u201cfine line for sure to straddle.\u201d<\/p>\n Gordon, who moved to the neighborhood when he was 6 years old, recalled passing by the statue every day on the way to grammar school. It\u2019s where they used to hang out as kids, the 43-year-old said. When the statue was removed in the middle of the night<\/a> six years ago, Gordon felt the community was unfairly treated.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s akin to taking down the Buckingham Fountain \u2026 for this neighborhood,\u201d he said. \u201cOr, you know, the Tin Man in Oz Park.\u201d<\/p>\n He was quick to note his fondness for the sculpture wasn\u2019t an endorsement of Columbus and that there\u2019s no better place to recognize Cabrini, whose story he loves and always been fascinated by. But the former statue was a point of local pride, he said, and losing it left a hole in the neighborhood.<\/p>\n Les Begay, a citizen of the Din\u00e9 Nation (also known as the Navajo Nation), agrees that Cabrini is a good alternative, but the Rogers Park resident opposes seeing the Columbus statues returned. Begay, also founder of the Indigenous Peoples Day Coalition of Illinois, previously told the Tribune that not returning the Columbus statues \u201ctells people that we still exist, that we are in Illinois, we\u2019re across the country and we didn\u2019t disappear in the 1800s.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been erased from history, so I think this is a step forward,\u201d he said after it was recommended that statues be permanently removed.<\/p>\n In a call with the Tribune this week, Begay said he didn\u2019t think last week\u2019s announcement put an end to the yearslong issue. To him, though content with Cabrini, seeing new statues go up signifies the conversation continues, and he wants to ensure his and other Indigenous groups are part of that discussion.<\/p>\n He said he was surprised by how the new statue was chosen, noting he was not informed firsthand of the process, and added that he hopes going forward \u2014 if there is further engagement \u2014 that those who have been opposed to the Columbus statue from the get-go are still involved today.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s all I\u2019m asking,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Some Little Italy residents were glad Columbus was ousted from his home in Arrigo Park.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not super familiar with Cabrini, but anything that\u2019s not Columbus is better, in my opinion,\u201d said Aaron Kramer, a 21-year-old University of Illinois Chicago student who has lived in Little Italy for just over three years. \u201cI\u2019m not a Columbus guy,\u201d said Kramer, who described Columbus as a colonizer and a \u201cfascist.\u201d<\/p>\n He wasn\u2019t aware it would be replaced with Cabrini, but a quick Google search showing her as the patron saint of immigrants got him on board.<\/p>\n \u201cI can get behind it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Chicago Tribune\u2019s Gregory Royal Pratt, A.D. Quig and Jake Sheridan and The Associated Press contributed.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/CTC-L-St-Frances-Xavier-Cabrini-01-e1772073868778.jpg\")
A statue of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, the first American saint, is shown in its niche in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome after its unveiling on Dec. 8, 1947. (AP Photo)<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ctc-Columbus_statue_Arrigo_Park_Little_Italy09_178168927.jpg\")
A person passes a tarp-covered Christopher Columbus statue at Arrigo Park on July 21, 2020. (Antonio Perez\/Chicago Tribune)
\n![\"Chicago](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/CTC-ColumbusStatue2_179065125.jpg\")
Chicago Park District worker Jose Troche finishes removing red paint that was sprayed on the Christopher Columbus statue in Arrigo Park on Oct. 9, 2017. (Phil Velasquez\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n![\"Restauranteur](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ctc-cabrini-statue-15_259913350.jpg\")
Restaurateur David Bonomi arrives at his restaurant, Peanut Park Trattoria, in Chicago’s Little Italy neighborhood on Feb. 25, 2026. (John J. Kim\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n