The sculptor of New York City’s famed Charging Bull statue — a big Financial District tourist draw and symbol of Wall Street power — died Friday at age 80, Italian media reported. Arturo Di Modica died in Vittoria, his hometown in Sicily, said the Italian newspaper La Repubblica. Di Modica had been fighting cancer for many years, and his condition recently worsened, the newspaper said.

“Charging Bull” debuted in December 1989 near the New York Stock Exchange at Broad and Wall streets, two months after the Oct. 13, 1989, stock market mini-crash. Di Modica and co-workers placed the 3½-ton statue near the stock exchange in the dead of night in hope of eluding security patrols.