A longtime reader sent me an email the other day with a question that perplexed me: What happened to Christopher Columbus' golden buckles, or more accurately, the gold-painted buckles on his boots? My correspondent was not, of course, talking about the explorer's real boots, but about the black marble pair that now adorn his statue at San...
READ MOREWhile two American cities, Minneapolis and Seattle, have decided to remove Christopher Columbus' name from the holiday, Philadelphia is sticking with tradition, and there was a parade in South Philadelphia Sunday to celebrate. Spectators lined South Broad Street as they do every year to hear sting bands play traditional Italian music and to celebr...
READ MOREIn the United States there are 144 places named after Columbus: cities, towns, lakes, rivers, provinces, villages, townships, counties and of course the District of Columbia. America also has more than 200 statues, busts, monuments, memorials, bas reliefs dedicated to him; while it's impossible to count paintings and other artworks. Nevertheless, i...
READ MORERain could not deter the Italian pride at Laura Bradley Park on Sunday afternoon.Standing under the Christopher Columbus statue that looks down onto West Parkside Drive, more than 30 Italians watched the rainy Christopher Columbus and Italian Heritage Recognition Ceremony. "It's an honor to have a Columbus statue here in a central part of Peoria,"...
READ MOREAll parades are tribal, and all parades look back. See how far we've come, they say. Better parades look forward, too. This is where we're going now. But the best parades reach out to others, raising a banner for universal values of goodwill, aiming in some small way to heal the world. Such a parade is walking down State Street in Chicag...
READ MOREdi Alessandra Moro È il 12 ottobre di cinquecentoventicinque anni fa: tre caravelle guidate dal ligure Cristoforo Colombo approdano a San Salvador (oggi isola di Watling, Bahamas), nell'erronea convinzione di esser giunti nell'Asia di Marco Polo. Invece hanno toccato un nuovo continente, quello che verrà poi chiamato "America" dal nome di Amerigo...
READ MOREIn 2013, the Mercer County Italian American Festival Committee donated and erected a statute of Christopher Columbus on the site of their building in Hamilton Township, a municipality comprised OF 70% Italian Americans. Shortly thereafter, irresponsible vandals defaced the statute by blackening the face. Cavaliere John Scarpati called it a despicab...
READ MOREAtty. Mark Bufalino, left, stands with Herman Castellani, president of the Italian American Association of Luzerne County, in front of the statue of Christopher Columbus, located on the corner of Kennedy Boulevard and Main Street, Pittston. Bufalino's father, the late Atty. Charles Bufalino, was president of the Columbus League of Luzerne...
READ MOREHudson County held a Columbus Day Commemoration, which included the raising of the Italian flag, on Oct. 8 in front of the William J. Brennan Court House in Jersey City. Among those featured in the commemoration was Hudson County Executive Tom DeGise, who was joined by a host of municipal honorees from Jersey City and Hoboken, all of whom...
READ MOREThe Italian Cultural Foundation at Casa Belvedere has joined with other leading organizations in an initiative called Save Columbus Day. This initiative was formed after the City of Seattle recently voted to have an "Indigenous Peoples Day" on the same day as Columbus Day. Please go to WWW.SAVECOLUMBUSDAY.COM and sign the petition to...
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