The fate of a 62-year-old statue of Christopher Columbus that towers over Schenley Drive near Phipps Conservatory in Oakland will be decided Sept. 23 by the Pittsburgh Art Commission. Before the commission meets, it is working to gauge public sentiment about the statue, one of Pittsburgh-based Italian artist Frank Vittor’s most visible works. A virtual hearing on the statue is set for 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept.17.

More than 14,000 people have signed an online petition, started by Finn Murphy, calling for the removal of the statue. “Christopher Columbus is far from the heroic explorer too many curriculums believe him to be,” Murphy wrote in the petition. It calls Columbus “a terrible man that should not be celebrated at all” because of the way native Americans were mistreated after his 1492 trip, which started the European colonization of the Americas.