Replica Christopher Columbus statue placed near White House

A 13-foot, one-ton marble statue of Italian explorer Christopher Columbus was placed in front of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building over the weekend, according to a Sunday letter from President Donald Trump. The building is next to the White House’s West Wing.

The Columbus statue was an exact replica of one torn down and broken in 2020 during Black Lives Matter protests in Baltimore, Trump wrote. He thanked the Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations, which gifted the statue. The new statue includes pieces of its shattered predecessor, which were retrieved from Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. The conference gifted the statue to the White House after Baltimore authorities refused it, it said.

Trump in his letter said he was honored by the gift. He described Columbus as a visionary and an American hero who carried Western civilization to the New World. A second statue commemorating the Revolutionary War was also placed near the White House, he said.

Dig deeper: Read Kyle Ziemnick’s story on the removal of Columbus statues in Chicago and elsewhere in 2020.