Italian Americans say Mayor de Blasio has fake blood on his hands for refusing to pardon statues of Christopher Columbus from a city panel reviewing “symbols of hate.” About 50 members of Italian American groups protested de Blasio’s controversial monument commission across the street from Columbus Circle outside of Central Park on Saturday, the day after the public got its first chance to weigh in at a Queens hearing.
“He’s emboldened a kind of disrespect for our community,” protest organizer Phil Foglia, 65, said. The Christopher Columbus Preservation Coalition also wrote a letter to de Blasio saying the review “has exacerbated ill will and enabled those who would deface monuments.”
