12-15-14-Chris Columb newest photo
George Wibrowski
Estates Class
Extra Credit –
The statue of Christopher Columbus stands at the main southern entrance of Central Park, Columbus circle, on 59th street and the intersection of 8th avenue and Broadway.
The statue commemorates Columbus’ voyages and arrival to the Americas. It also commemorates the great open space which we have in that central location, Central Park. Some trees within the park have remained in place for over a hundred years and it is a welcoming inner city escape for many New Yorkers.
Columbus’ statue was build in 1892 by Gaetano Russo to commemorate 400 years since he and his team landed in America.
Briefly in 2012, the statue was brought down to be part of an exhibit by Japanese Artist Tatsu Nishi with help from the Public Art Fund. In a controversial project, the statue was carefully brought down and into a large replica of a living room built about 7 stories up in the air. The artist is known for bringing usually hard to access exhibits into a more “accessible” view to the public, said Nicholas Baume director and curator of the public art fund.
Christopher Columbus was born in Genoa, Italy and lived from approx: (10/31/1451 – 5/20/1506).
Columbus spent five years raising funds from those in positions of influence such as Queens Isabella of Spain, before he had enough resources to make his voyage out west. On his voyage, Columbus stumbled across what was referred to as “the new world,” while he and his countrymen were in pursuit of a different trade path to Asia, or to find India. He came with three of his ships; the Nina , the Pinta and the Santa Maria. When they arrived, to the Bahamas, on October 12th 1492, it was deemed to be Europe’s first (as far as they knew it) encounter of this new land – known to be America.
Though millions of people had already lived in the Americas before Columbus arrived, he is credited with setting forth news that would attract the Spanish and other Europeans to the conquest and major change of The Americas.
As a result, much devastation had occurred, in part purposely by violence from the Spanish, and depletion of the Americas’ resources (such as trees), but partly accidental as well from a disease known as small box which unbeknownst to the Spanish, had been carried over by them to the new world.
In addition though, industrialization of certain things such as fishing took place and more shaping by European influence began as well. Horses were re-introduced to the area (from having previously been on the continent during the times of the ice-age).
Overall, after the English had defeated the Spanish, they came over in larger numbers, bringing much of their crops over to the new land which they would plant in place of where vast amounts of trees once stood. They also planted new trees, apples and they brought bees for honey.
Eventually, after much influence by the British and more battles had been fought, we were able to put in place a government independent of British rule, all of which would not have been possible (at least not as it had occurred), without the adventurous efforts and journeys to the Americas taken by Christopher Columbus, his fellow countrymen (their optimistic ideals), and the generations of Europeans with their advanced forms of agriculture which followed.
I obtained the above information from the sites below, but mainly from the this site, which is an interesting several part series on Columbus, on youtube, from the history channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hBJHg_DzFM
Sources: cnn. c o m, wikipedia. o r g, youtube. c o m
