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One of NYC’s most famous statues is galloping off to a new home.
After years of criticism that the Teddy Roosevelt statue outside the American Museum of Natural History was a symbol of colonialism and racial discrimination, it will now officially be relocated.
The New York City Public Design Commission voted unanimously this week to relocate the statue which depicts the former president on horseback next to a Native American man and an African man. The statue is set to be relocated to a yet-to-be-determined cultural institution dedicated to Roosevelt’s life and legacy.
While demonstrations against the statue’s presence have grown more intense in recent years, the statue itself has stood outside the museum since 1940. President Roosevelt was a founding member of the museum and a pioneering conservationist.
The museum staff and city officials first agreed to remove the statue last year amid the large demonstrations for racial justice that took place in the city with Mayor de Blasio calling the piece “problematic.” In the meeting this week, a representative from the NYC Parks Department said that the statue "supports a thematic framework of colonization and racism."
This week's vote was the final step in order to move forward on removing the statue.