![]() Railroads were forgotten and Columbus has been stripped of his prominence-hopefully even a 1 st grader can tell you that he didn’t discover America before anyone else did, but was just the first European in a century or two. It’s innocent and pure in its connection between rail and Columbus’ eh hem, discovery. The piece likened the linkages born by 50 years of railroad investment to that forged by Columbus. The fountain commemorating Columbus was commissioned at the tail end of the railroad era, just before its demise became a forgone conclusion. He certainly didn’t die poor and in shackles, though his family sued the Spanish crown for three decades after his death. However, he was released and lived to make another–rather lucrative–voyage. His poor governance and the fact that he loved slave-taking incited his patrons to haul him and his brothers back in chains. Yet more parallels with our nation’s history? However, unlike our nation, Columbus was made to pay for his sins–if only briefly. He was peeved that Ferdinand and Isabella, his patrons, wouldn’t allow him to take indigenous slaves back to Europe for his profit. ![]() In fact, the manifest destiny was almost a direct outgrowth of the zealous and self-righteous pioneering that Columbus began.Ĭolumbus made four total trips and was a greedy and often inhumane man. This interconnection also led to the plague and war-related massacre of 48 million indigenous Americans–leaving only 1.8 million. Similarly, Nineteenth Century America was famous for signing and disregarding treaties with Native Americans, ultimately slaughtering or removing the vast majority of them. Like America, he connected many nations, which led to an increasingly globalized trade unimaginable by past generations. But considering the honest innocence of the rest of Taft’s body of work, it can be interpreted as nothing less than pure idolatry of a man who 102 years ago was-more than figuratively-remembered for discovering America. It’s institutionalizes his embodiment of our nation. Which brings us back to the Columbus Fountain. It’s verbose, florid and neo-classical. ![]() His many subtleties were purely artistic-and in a town of politicians, that leaves things up to interpretation. ![]() His pieces were metaphorical, to be sure, but they were far from politically motivated. His Fountain of Time and Fountain of the Great Lakes (man, did that guy like fountains!) straight-forwardly analogize the history of man and the five Great Lakes, respectively. In Chicago, we’re steeped in Taft’s work from a young age. He designed monumental analogies of the beauty of America. Like much artwork of the past, it romanticizes him as a modest character. Columbus stands with his hands folded and a much more modest robe than he would have ever worn in real life. It stands 45 feet tall, though is dwarfed by Union Station’s neo-classical façade. And it seems to be one of the better stories in town (though Governors who fake failed marriages to get away with past wheeling and dealing takes a close seat behind this one).īack to Columbus Fountain. Now the story that I tell is one that may differ from what’s in the history books, but it’s the tale I see when I look at that fountain a century after its unveiling. It is what it sounds like-an unequivocal epitaph in praise of Christopher Columbus. At one of those most prominent intersections in the grand L’Enfant Plan is Columbus Fountain. After all, what kind of a “world class city” would DC be without such edifices. But without the linchpins holding together each of his monumental intersections, there would be much less to indicate to passersby that they were in nothing less than the American Capital-which of course requires, nay demands monumental structures like this. Photographs by Rey Lopez, Under a Bushel PhotographyĮveryone who’s ever learned about DC history has marveled at Pierre Charles L’Enfant’s city layout.
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