The Connecticut artist saw the Christopher Columbus statue being pulled down, with crowds shouting both for and against, on his television.
It was June 24, 2020, and Branford artist Marc-Anthony Massaro and the Christopher Columbus statue being taken down from Wooster Square Park in New Haven.
He had grown up in the neighborhood — his mother was first cousins with Sal Consigliaro of Sally’s Apizza — and he had mixed feelings about the statue.
“There’s one aspect of it that is very sentimental, because I remember walking on the square with my grandfather when I was a little kid, and then going down there with him and that kind of thing,” he said.
On the other hand, when he was in high school and college “and Columbus Day would roll around, I always felt that, all right, the Italian-American community, they’re big on Columbus, and what they attribute to him,” he said.
“But I always felt that Wooster Square, that neighborhood, there was nothing really there commemorating the Italians who came here and settled in New Haven,” he said. “And they’re really responsible for the multifaceted personality that New Haven has, as far as what Italians contributed to the city of New Haven.
“It didn’t have anything to do with Columbus. It had to do with these people,” he said. “And I always felt there should be some sort of monument commemorating the immigrants.”
That day, Massaro, 70, took up his sketchpad and drew an immigrant family looking hopeful as they arrive in America with their suitcases.
He submitted his idea to the Wooster Square Monument Committee, which was formed to replace the Columbus statue, which the city has stored in an undisclosed place.
“I have a pretty tenacious work ethic,” Massaro said. “I said, I’ve got nothing to lose. I’m going to go ahead and make the prototype of this thing. I’m going to sculpt it out and see if I can get it done before they start soliciting for artists to mail stuff in.”
He created a one-sixth-scale version, 12 inches tall, and sent it to the committee, who immediately called and asked, “When did you do this?” Massaro said. “At that point they were just looking at pencil sketches and rough concepts that people were submitting, and here they were receiving an actual finished three-dimensional representation.”
He created the model in his Branford Art Studio, where he teaches and sculpts and paints portraits.
“That’s what I photographed and sent it in to the committee, along with a brief history of my background and my connection towards the square and my family, and why I was inspired to create this thing in such an expedient manner.”
‘To look for a new life’
Ultimately, Massaro won the commission over a number of entries.
On June 9, weather permitting, almost four years after Columbus was removed from the park, Massaro’s statue, “Indicando la via al futuro” (“Pointing the way to the future”) will be dedicated, in front of the plinth where Columbus had stood since 1892.
It depicts an Italian family, a couple, a girl and a small boy in his father’s arms, pointing upward.
Massaro’s grandfather immigrated to Wooster Square in 1910, then moved in 1945 to Willow Street, next to where Archie Moore’s bar is now. His brother’s son was Sal Consiglio, who opened Sally’s in 1938.
“So we’re related to one of the most famous landmarks in New Haven as far as Sally’s Apizza,” Massaro said.
A classically trained artist whose family lived in Wooster Square set up an art scholarship and Massaro was the first recipient, which got him started on his art education.
He can’t say whether his connection to Wooster Square gave him an edge in the competition.
“There weren’t any other artists entering this thing that have the connection towards the square that I do and had that sort of emotional spark to create that thing for the square,” he said.
“Yes, it was inspired by photographs of my grandparents, my great-grandparents that I used to create the images and that kind of thing,” he said. “But for me, I want it to be a representation of not only Italian Americans, but these are all the people in the city of New Haven whose families come from basically the same story.
“They got here to the United States through some situation. They either came here as immigrants to look for a new life,” Massaro said. “Some people came here I think out of necessity. I think there are people that came here because they were persecuted in their countries because of religious beliefs or political beliefs and decided, well, let’s get out of here and go to the United States.
“So how these people end up here and all end up in the city in New Haven is what that sculpture is about.”
‘Very proud of their Italian heritage’
Massaro completed the sculpture in October after 14 months of work. It was sent to Skylight Studios in Woburn, Mass., where molds were made for its 18 pieces. Then they were sent to Adonis Bronze foundry in Utah to be cast in bronze. It stands 9 feet, 3 inches tall, 7 feet across and 5 feet deep.
“I created the sculpture,” he said. “Now the foundry takes over. It’s a wonderful feeling knowing that it has reached this level now. … Unofficially it’s finished, it’s done. It has been approved. The city is going to allow this to be placed on the square. And I’m very, very happy for the committee.”
The committee is pleased not only about the statue Massaro created but for raising $400,000, the budget that increased as costs went up, according to co-chairman Bill Iovanne Jr. of Iovanne Funeral Home.
All the costs were covered without so much as a fundraiser, Iovanne said. He wouldn’t reveal the names of the major donors, whose names will be engraved on a plaque.
“It’s mainly local people that have been invested in the project and are very proud of their Italian heritage and really approached us to be involved in the project in some way, shape or form,” he said.
The donors don’t include in-kind donations, such as Operating Engineers Local 478, C.J. Fucci Construction, which did the excavations, Bay Crane, and Sampson Electric.
“They’re just finishing up the last couple of pieces at the foundry,” Iovanne said of the statue’s progress. “And then once that is done, Marc will go back up to Skylight Studios to reassemble all of the pieces and then it gets welded together, polished and then the patina color that Marc has selected will be applied, and then it’ll be ready for delivery to us on site, we’re hoping around mid- to late May.”
The landscaping will include shrubbery dedicated to Iovanne’s co-chairwoman, Laura Florio Luzzi, who died in September 2022.
“We are going to do a little garden shrubbery and some flowers going around the base of where Columbus used to stand, and that is going to be dedicated in honor of Laura,” he said. “That’s one of the things that’s going to happen on dedication day.”
“It’s really exciting,” Mayor Justin Elicker said. “To think of how far we’ve come since the Columbus statue was removed to now, both in the physical design and fabrication of the new statue, but more importantly in the change of connectivity in the community. Things were pretty raw at the time that the Columbus statue was removed, particularly in the Italian community.”
He said the committee, which included “longstanding individuals in the Italian community in addition to neighborhood advocates” has done “just so much work to build bridges and I think capture the intention of the original Columbus statue to honor the Italian immigrant experience.”
Elicker added that “it has not been easy. The committee has gone through many different boards and commissions, meetings of the Board of Alders, the Parks Commission, the Historic District Commission and the work has not been easy. But thanks in particular to the leadership of Bill Iovanne, I think that the event in June is going to be one that is overwhelmingly positive.”
Ed Stannard can be reached at estannard@courant.com.
