Whether trying to preserve the Christopher Columbus statue in Seaside Park or pressure City Hall to remove it, people on both sides of the debate were blindsided Monday when Mayor Joe Ganim’s administration abruptly put the monument in storage.

Shoshana Mahon, who just graduated from Fairchild Wheeler High School, helped organize a July 4 protest calling on Ganim to get rid of the statue as part of a recent national movement targeting the divisive explorer. I’m still in disbelief,” Mahon said Tuesday. “It’s almost too easy. It was like, ‘Why did they take it down so fast?’ I didn’t expect them to listen to us. I thought we’d have to go back.”