Christopher Columbus Park
The Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Park, in which the carousel is located, is part the larger "big dig" project during which a central highway was moved underground, and a string of parks was constructed in its place. The Christopher Columbus Park is one of those parks, bordering the shoreline and housing a statue of Christopher Columbus, erected in 1979. The statue is situated about three quarters of the way down a long covered walkway, the covering structure framing the statue. In the spirit of a true collage of marketplace and public works projects, a Joe's sign for Joe's Restaurant and Grille, part of a restaurant chain started in the 1960s, hangs directly behind the statue, filling out the portico frame. The juxtaposition, while likely unintentional, underscores the duality whereby new structures are built, layering onto the pre-existing landscape, while also communicating with and finding a place within that landscape.
The statue has, in recent years, had to be renewed multiple times, as it has come to represent a dark side of Boston history. The statue was beheaded in 2002 and then in 2005 by Civil Rights protesters, and was covered in red paint and scrawled with the words "Black Lives Matter" in 2015. The statue, while initially marking a 1970s moment of urban renewal, has accrued deeper significance as a result of a shifting culture over time, now representing Boston's role, as a founding American city, in contemporary American politics.