Mark Massaro's design for a new statue in Wooster Square Park.
Is the art too saccharine? Obsolete on arrival?
Does it tell only an Italian story and not one that reflects the diversity of Wooster Square today?
Has the community not truly been engaged in the process?
And where in the original charge to artists a year ago was there permission to pave over more than a thousand square feet of precious green space?
Those questions were engaged politely but passionately Tuesday night via Zoom as 30 members of the Downtown Wooster Square Community Management Team (DWSCMT) viewed a proposed design the city-nominated Wooster Square Monument Committee has come up with to replace the Christopher Columbus Statue removed last year from Wooster Square Park.
Participants in the meeting urged a new process, and perhaps starting over.
New Haven took down the Wooster Square Christopher Columbus statue in June 2020, to cheers from some and anger from others, as part of a national moment recognizing the violence Columbus perpetrated against indigenous Taino people. Mayor Justin Elicker created the Wooster Square Monument Committee soon after to plan for a replacement.
A year and a half later, having picked Mark Massaro’s design from those submitted by more than 100 artists, the committee, headed by co-chair William Iovanne, Jr., along with several other of the 27 members, came before the DWSCMT with the result.
Committee members came with their collective tail slightly between its legs.
Why? On Dec. 8, the design was given a sobering review by the Historic District Commission. Iovanne reported that as a result, “we’ve decided to take a step back and have an open discussion with the community.”
To move forward, the design requires approval not only by the HDC, which had serious questions about scale, appropriateness in the context of local architecture, and materials, but also by the city’s Cultural Commission and Board of Parks Commissioners.
Click here to read Mary O’leary’s story in the Register summarizing that HDC meeting. And click here for the full file, with photos, of the committee’s presentation to the HDC.
Wooster Square resident and New Haven Urban Design League President Anstress Farwell bemoaned a review system – or lack thereof — that allowed the Massaro design to reach the HDC without any checks along the way to determine if the proposal met generally accepted standards of historic preservation. Wooster Square is one of the city’s historic districts.
Farwell said it is highly unlikely the current design would receive the HDC’s blessing.
Although the project is on the HDC’s agenda for next meeting in January, Iovanne reported he is withdrawing.
Instead, he and the committee are engaging with the community, the Historic Wooster Square Association, and other parties to see if alterations and perhaps a re-visioning can satisfy more stakeholders.
Here’s a sampling of the serious questioning – from the quality/universality of the sculptural family figure art to the very location itself – that percolated for more than an hour among attendees:
“I’m very concerned,” Judith Taft said Tuesday night, “living as I do on the edge of the park at the diminishing of green space. The mission statement of the committee was to place atop of a modified pedestal in the park, but they’ve gone way beyond wanting to pave 1,644 feet of the park with flood lights, planters. And I don’t see any of that in their mission statement. I don’t see how they would do away with the green space, here for 200 years and saved by Italian Americans when a highway was coming through.”
She went on to suggest that the plaza component of the design might be moved across Chapel Street to Paul Russo Memorial Park, where weekend local green markets are convened.
“I understand your concerns,” replied Iovanne, “about covering any green space. When you get into a project you sometimes do get blinded, which is why community feedback is so important. We’re in the very beginnings of conversation with Historic Wooster Square to see if this is an option. No one at the city level until we got to the HDC had made an issue about the footprint.”
Neighbor Anika Singh Lemar said she shares concerns about the paving, along with more fundamental issues: “I don’t like to come out against things people are spending their time doing, but I do have real concerns that this doesn’t really reflect Wooster Square in 2021. We continue to be a city of immigrants, but we are increasingly Latinx, and so far it seems we haven’t made space for them.”
Iovanne parried that the charge of the city in the Request For Proposals was to replace the Columbus statue with a design that celebrates the Italian American heritage story. “We feel very strongly about telling our story. There is plenty of room for others to tell their story.”
The artist, Mark Massaro, was in attendance. He asserted his aim initially had been to “go abstract,” but then he worried if it would be relatable.
“Is it sentimental? Yes, it most certainly is,” he said. However, in the bronze figural group, which he ultimately decided was the direction to go, the aim was “to encompass a lot more people and their backgrounds.”
Alex Werrell — who, like Farwell, had been among a handful who had also attended the HDC hearing — offered a withering critique: “I think it’s a shame and surprising that nobody at HDC brought up the size of this monument. On a basic level it doesn’t meet ‘form and dimension’ requirements. I agree with Anika and other comments that maybe the mayor was a little misguided in the charge he gave the committee, but maybe it’s too late to tilt at that windmill.”
He went on to register his “distaste not just for the green space eaten up but also for the statue itself, which doesn’t feel a good piece of public art. I apologize if this sounds personal, but it does not feel like a piece of art that addresses people in an even-handed way, it feels patronizing and saccharine. There are moving pieces of public art in our city but this is not one of them.”
Architect Linda Reeder echoed others’ remarks that the scale is too large. John Lindner, who said he has lived in Wooster Square only two years but already loves its diversity, added, “I worry that what we put up won’t just be caught in our little niche of time, so that people in the future will feel it meaningful as well.”
He supported the idea of addressing the green space issue by plunking a green oval in the center of the proposed plaza, having meandering gravel paths instead of the proposed fund-raising pavers, and moving the several historical plaque/marquees across the street in a sister site at Paul Russo Memorial Park.
“The diversity of the park and neighborhood definitely need to be thought about as the committee continues to do its work,” Lindner said.
Steve Hamm, who made a documentary about New Haven’s Italian-American community, offered a more minority positive take: “They spent a year and a half on this project, with a certain charge. They wanted to preserve a bit of the Italian American immigrant experience, and I frankly think the statue itself and the way they deal with the pedestal is very effective.”
Iovanne thanked the group for its comments, concerns, and criticisms.
“This is a process,” he said. “We feel strongly about the story we’re telling, but I do say it is not to downplay any other group. This is about inclusion, although there is no way to wrap our arms around everyone. We heard what you said, and we need to make some modifications. So we have asked for an extension with HDC. We’ll continue to engage moving forward.”
If we really want to honor the Italian heritage of New Haven, the statue has to have a connection to pizza. It's one of the city's central bragging points, and it honors the past, present, and future of the city. Seems like an incredibly obvious solution to me.