This Columbus Day, we join in celebrating the contributions of Italian-Americans, whose ancestors came here in the steerage of ships as poor immigrants and in no small measure built this country. The Italians also built much of this city; you can find famous names by the dozens, but the common folk did more. And to mark their place with pride, they raised the money to erect the Columbus Circle monument to the Admiral of the Ocean Sea.

It was christened on Columbus Day in 1892, four centuries after the Genoa native landed in America. Inscribed in both English and Italian from “the Italians resident in America,” the column and statue reaching 76 feet high recall “in imperishable remembrance” his fearless feat of navigation, declaring “to the world he gave a world.” It’s true: Few did as much to make our present possible. That he was a complex historical figure who did bad things as well as good cannot change that overriding fact.