A coalition of Italian heritage advocates and a Chinese-American Republican lawmaker plan to unveil a Christopher Columbus statue on private property in Brooklyn this October, deliberately sidestepping a city government they expect would block it.
State Assemblyman Lester Chang, a Republican who represents the Bensonhurst and Dyker Heights neighborhoods of Brooklyn, assembled the Preserving Italian Heritage Coalition to erect the monument at the John Hughes Club in Dyker Heights. The group chose private grounds for a simple reason: Chang said placing the statue in a public park, he initially eyed one on 18th Avenue, would trigger a city review process lasting roughly two years, almost certainly ending in rejection under Mayor Zohran Mamdani's administration.
So the coalition skipped the permission slip entirely. By building on private property, the group avoids every layer of municipal approval that Mamdani's City Hall could use to stall or kill the project. The New York Post first reported the coalition's plans, noting the group has set a $100,000 fundraising goal to cover construction and long-term maintenance.
Mamdani's office did not reply to a request for comment.
The mayor's hostility toward Columbus monuments is not speculation. In 2020, while serving as a state Assemblyman, Mamdani gave the middle finger to a Christopher Columbus statue in Queens and publicly called for its removal. That gesture, from a self-described democratic socialist who now runs the city, is exactly the kind of official contempt that prompted the coalition to go private.
Gregory Lendino, the coalition's treasurer, framed Columbus as a figure who once united Italian Americans across political lines.
"It didn't matter if you were Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal. He was just an icon that we rallied around."
Lendino said Columbus held that status among Italians until very recently. His summary of the immigrant generation that built New York's Italian neighborhoods was blunt.
"They came here and they built things. They didn't tear things down."
That line draws a sharp contrast with the current political climate in New York, where elected officials have spent years trying to strip Italian heritage symbols from public spaces rather than preserve them.
Chang's involvement is one of the more striking details. Born on Eldridge Street in Manhattan, he is the son of a Chinese immigrant who arrived in 1924. His father was turned away from multiple jobs before an Italian restaurant in Liberty, New York, finally hired him. That personal history drives Chang's commitment to the Italian community he now represents in Albany.
"I'm Chinese, but this is my community, too."
Chang wrote the coalition's first check before the group even had a bank account. He traces the idea to the November 2024 election and President Trump's subsequent Columbus Day proclamation, which vowed to reclaim the explorer from "left-wing arsonists."
Stefano Forte, president of the New York Young Republican Club, said his organization has helped with early fundraising. Forte connected the project directly to the mayor's record.
"At a time when Italian American history and culture are being erased by Mayor Mamdani, our club is highlighting one of the giants of American and Italian history, Christopher Columbus."
The coalition is not naive about what happens to Columbus statues in 2026. The group designed the statue's base wide enough to accommodate a protective enclosure in case of vandalism, a precaution that says everything about the political environment monuments to European explorers now face in American cities.
Beyond the Brooklyn unveiling, the coalition has broader ambitions. The group wants to serve as a landing spot for removed monuments from elsewhere in the country, a kind of refugee program for statues that other cities no longer want. Which specific monuments the coalition has discussed acquiring remains unclear.
Coalition member Lori Pedone spoke about the project in generational terms.
"My grandparents would be ecstatic knowing that we're trying to preserve history."
Pedone added a forward-looking note as well.
"My son was recently married. Maybe my grandchildren will one day be able to see that statue and be proud of it as well."
The coalition's strategy reveals something uncomfortable about the state of civic life in New York City. A group of citizens who want to honor a historical figure central to their heritage concluded that the fastest, and possibly only, path to success was to avoid their own government entirely. They did not petition. They did not lobby. They did not file an application. They went around City Hall because they believed City Hall would say no.
Chang's two-year estimate for the review process, paired with his expectation of rejection, amounts to a vote of no confidence in the Mamdani administration's willingness to treat Italian heritage fairly. The mayor's office had a chance to push back on that characterization. It chose silence.
The $100,000 fundraising target covers both construction and maintenance, though how much has been raised beyond Chang's initial personal contribution is not yet public.
When citizens have to build on private land to put up a statue their own mayor once flipped off, the problem is not the statue. It is the mayor.
