New York City threatens statues of Washington, Columbus and Jefferson over slavery links and mulls reparations task force as monumental budget cuts hit police, firefighters in the wake of the migrant crisis
- City leaders debate removal of historic statues from the city's parks, squares and public buildings
- Comes as the city struggles to cope with 'financial tsunami' caused by migrant crisis
- 'Little more than an attempt by the radical left to rewrite our nation’s history,' claim opponents
Money should be found to remove statues of America’s founding fathers despite a $12billion migrant crisis that will ‘destroy’ New York City, its mayor has been told.
The city’s Cultural Affairs Committee has demanded the eviction of George Washington and Christopher Columbus and others from public spaces because of links to slavery, along with the establishment of a reparations task force.
The plans before the city council on Tuesday come after Mayor Eric Adams warned that New Yorkers face a ‘financial tsunami’ from the cost of providing for more than 10,000 new migrants a month.
But they have prompted fury as the city scratches around for resources with libraries, meals for senior citizens and childcare all now at risk.
‘This is little more than an attempt by the radical left to rewrite our nation’s history,’ said City Councilor Joann Ariola.
The George Washington statue at the Federal Hall National Memorial in New York City is among those at risk
Mayor Eric Adams has warned the crisis will cost the Big Apple $12 billion over next three years
Asylum seekers, denied a hotel room, line the side walk of the Roosevelt Hotel
‘The Founding Fathers and the others who worked so hard to establish this great country should be celebrated, not eliminated from memory.’
The Committee plans to remove any public statue or work of art that ‘depicts a person who owned enslaved persons or directly benefited economically from slavery, or who participated in systemic crimes against indigenous peoples or other crimes against humanity’.
Dozens of prominent statues across the city are at risk including those depicting Thomas Jefferson and former governor Peter Stuyvesant.
Anti-racism training would be introduced for contractors and city employees, and a task force would ‘consider the impact of slavery and past injustices for African Americans in New York City and reparations for such injustices’.
‘Explanatory plaques’ would be installed next to any statue not removed and on schools named after them.
Meanwhile an injunction was filed overnight against the Mayor’s plans to set up a shelter for migrants at the historic Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn.
More than 110,000 asylum seekers have arrived in the city since the Spring of 2022 with New Yorkers paying an average of $385 a night per migrant family.
Mayor Adams has pleaded for federal help in footing the bill and lashed out at Greg Abbott as a ‘madman’ after the Texas governor bussed thousands from his state.
Former governor Peter Stuyvesant has a statue in the square named after him on 2nd Avenue at 16th St
Immigrants queue up to be processed on arrival at New York's Roosevelt Hotel
Adams recently admitted the crisis is threatening to 'destroy' the Big Apple - but he blasted a lack of federal support, a 'broken' nationwide immigration system and Republicans bussing refugees from their own states into the city
New York City's migrant crisis is expected to cost the city $4.7billion this year. Above is a list of some of the landmarks that have been turned into emergency shelters as officials struggle to house nearly 60,000 migrants in the city's care
Christopher Columbus has been singled out because of his treatment of natives in Hispanolia
‘Never in my life have I had a problem that I did not see an ending to,’ the Mayor said earlier this month. ‘We are about to experience a financial tsunami that I don’t think the city has ever experienced.
‘Every service in this city is going to be impacted, from child service to our seniors to housing.
'This issue will destroy New York City.’
City planners have estimated the cost at $4.7billion this year alone, equal to the budgets for the city's sanitation, fire and parks departments combined.
Jacques Jiha, the city's budget director, has told the police department, fire, sanitation and corrections all to drastically reduce overtime.
No details of the reparations plan were revealed ahead of today’s meeting but San Francisco’s city council is debating plans for a $5 million payout to each of its long-term black residents.
The removal of contentious statues of civil war figures has transfixed southern states for more than a decade and some New Yorkers are baffled at the bid to open a new front of the culture war in their city.
More than 110,000 migrants have arrived in New York City after crossing the southern border in the last two years
The Thomas Jefferson statue was removed from its pedestal inside the City Council chambers in 2021
The left-wing Democrats backing today's bid have not singled out any of the statues they want to see fall, but they are thought to include America's first president who freed his slaves on his death and has a prominent memorial in the city's Washington Square.
A statue of Thomas Jefferson was previously removed from City Hall in 2021 despite his role in drafting the declaration of independence, but another sits outside Colombia University.
Peter Stuyvesant has a statue in the square named after him on 2nd Avenue at 16th St, and Christopher Columbus has several prominent monuments including a 41-foot column in he middle of Manhattan's Columbus Circle.
‘Columbus was a migrant!’ Angelo Vivolo of the Columbus Heritage Coalition told the New York Post.
‘The Italian-American community will come out strongly against this move to ban Columbus, a symbol of Italian-American accomplishment.
‘But it’s not just Columbus. You’re going against Washington, Jefferson. You’re going against the people who contributed greatly to America.
‘This woke group wants to cancel our culture. I’m here for the fight.’
How Thomas Jefferson kept 600 slaves during his life but passed a law during his presidency banning the import and export of slaves
Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13 1743 at the Shadwell plantation outside of Charlottesville in Virginia.
He was the third of 10 children to one of the most prominent families of Virginia's planter elite.
Throughout Jefferson's life he was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect and philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president between 1801 and 1809.
In his presidency he stabilized the country's economy and defeated pirates from North Africa during the Barbary War.
He is also credited for doubling the size of the US by successfully brokering the Louisiana Purchase.
Jefferson was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, motivating American colonists to break from Great Britain and form a new nation.
Congress formally adopted the Declaration on July 4 1776, now celebrated as Independence Day.
The Declaration famously reads: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.'
Jefferson (pictured) is known to have kept more than 600 slaves throughout his life
But despite this, Jefferson is known to have kept more than 600 slaves throughout his life.
He had said slavery was a 'moral depravity' and a 'hideous blot', yet Jefferson profited directly from it.
Jefferson even wrote in his text Notes on the State of Virginia that he suspected black people were inferior to white people.
He thought that white Americans and enslaved blacks constituted two 'separate nations' who could not live together peacefully in the same country.
Through his 1772 marriage to Martha Wayles, Jefferson inherited two plantations and by 1776 was one of the largest planters in Virginia.
Although Jefferson believed slavery was harmful to both slave and master, he expressed reservations over releasing them into freedom with no education or means to support themselves.
He instead advocated for a gradual voluntary training and drafted legislation allowing owners to free slaves.
By 1806 he officially called for anti-slavery legislation banning the import or export of slaves, a law that was passed in 1807.
One of Jefferson's slaves was the mixed-race Sally Hemings, a half-sister of his wife Martha, who lived on his primary plantation in Monticello.
No known portraits of Sally Hemings exist, but this one is based on descriptions of her appearance. Pictured: What Hemings may have looked like
Jefferson and Sally shared a relationship and DNA evidence proved he fathered at least one of her children, Eston Hemings, though rumours suggest he fathered six children in total.
The pair's sexual relationship is believed to have started when Hemings was an underage teenager and Jefferson was in his 40s.
She would not have been in a position to give or withhold consent given that Jefferson owned her, with many historians describing his treatment of Sally as rape.
Very little is known of Sally, but one of the few accounts of her by an enslaved blacksmith named Isaac Granger Jefferson described her as 'mighty near white...very handsome, long straight hair down her back.'
As a child, she was probably a nursemaid to Jefferson's daughter Maria, as enslaved girls from the age of six or eight were childminders and assistants to head nurses on southern plantations.
Congress formally adopted the Declaration on July 4 1776, now celebrated as Independence Day.
Sally served as an attendant to Maria Jefferson, as well as Martha Jefferson, accompanying them on various trips to Paris.
After her return to Virginia in 1789, Sally Hemings remained at Monticello and worked as a household servant.
Sally's son Madison recalled that one of her duties was 'to take care of [Jefferson's] chamber and wardrobe, look after us children, and do light work such as sewing.'
Sally was enslaved in Jefferson's house along with her surviving children, who Jefferson released as they each came of age.
Sally, however, was forced to remain in the house as a slave until Jefferson's death on July 4, 1826 - the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Pictured: An image of the Declaration of Independence which was formally adopted in 1776
