The Christopher Columbus statue in Boston’s North End will be removed Wednesday, hours after it was beheaded overnight. Mayor Marty Walsh said it will be put in storage and there will now be conversations about the “historic meaning” of the incident and whether it will ever go back up.

The statue in Christopher Columbus Park on Atlantic Avenue was surrounded by crime scene tape early Wednesday morning as the head lay on the ground next to the base. Columbus was one of the first Europeans in the New World, credited by many for discovering America. However, critics say his trip began the trans-Atlantic slave trade.