When Joseph Guagliardo was a street kid growing up in Red Hook in Brooklyn, the statue of Christopher Columbus at the southwest corner of Central Park in Manhattan made him swell with pride.

His grandmother, Giavanna, who arrived from Sicily near the turn of the century and, like many immigrants, Anglicized her name and went by Jenny, would take him on the subway to see the 76-foot-high memorial at the center of Columbus Circle.