Politicians, teachers, art historians, feminists, futurists and more turned out to speak on the role of public monuments in New York City. The Mayoral Advisory Commission on City Art, Monuments, and Markers held their public hearing for Brooklyn this morning at Borough Hall.

The hearing is the latest in a series, one in each of the five boroughs, in which the commission will hear input from New Yorkers, before creating non-binding guidelines concerning the treatment of monuments before the end of the year. Statues of Christopher Columbus—most notably the one in the center of Columbus Circle—and the East Harlem statue of controversial surgeon J. Marion Sims were the center of debate.