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Columbus Piazza
(corner of President Street & Eastern Avenue) This monument to Christopher Columbus is carved in Italian Carrara marble and was dedicated on October 8, 1984 by former Mayor of Baltimore William Donald Schaefer and President Ronald Reagan. It depicts the discoverer facing east along Eastern Avenue into the rising sun - the direction from which the explorer's vessels arrived over 400 years ago. Each year the Italian community holds a Wreath-laying ceremony in Columbus Piazza before it hosts the Columbus Day Parade, in existence for over 127 years. In 2019, a new Italian Heritage Festival replaced the traditional parade |
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- Critics of Columbus Day get history wrong, scholar says >>>
- History in the Unmaking: In Defense of Christopher Columbus >>> (Italian America Magazine, summer 2019)
- Celebrating Italian-Americans in Baltimore >>> (Baltimore Sun Dec. 4, 2016)
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On the base appear bas relief carvings showing the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, the explorer's birthplace
of Genoa, as well as the landing and meeting with the Indians of the new land.
of Genoa, as well as the landing and meeting with the Indians of the new land.
THE NINA
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SANTA MARIA
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THE PINTA
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President Ronald Reagan (to right of mini statue) visited Baltimore's Little Italy to dedicate the Christopher Columbus statue in 1984.
