There are plenty of statues of the sailor of the ocean blue, Christopher Columbus, around — one at Columbus Circle, another one at Literary Walk in Central Park, another one at Astoria Boulevard and 31st Street, and a bust on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx — but this one, at the NYS Supreme Court Building on Court Street (officially, #360 Adams Street) has been around more than the other ones.
This Christy Colum was sculpted by Emma Stebbins, who also fashioned the angel at Central Park’s Bethesda Terrace, in 1867, and exhibited in a little-traveled section in the northern area of Central Park and then into the restaurant area of the now-demolished McGown’s Pass Tavern in the park. When the tavern was demolished in 1912, Chris found his way to a Central Park storage yard near 97th Street, and languished, forgotten once again, until 1934 when it was remounted in Chinatown. In 1971, during the Lindsay administration, it was mounted here, where it remains.
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