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Scrap metal or monument? Johnston picks the latter. Removed from its Providence pedestal in 2020 and locked away in storage, a 130-year-old statue depicting Christopher Columbus will be re-erected in Johnston’s War Memorial Park in October. In the 1890s, the same French artist who sculpted the Statue of Liberty — Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi — crafte...

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Former Providence Mayor Joe Paolino is the new owner of the Providence Columbus statue. In a unanimous vote Thursday, the Providence Board Park Commissioners, headed by Mayor Brett Smiley, selected Paolino’s bid to purchase the statue. “[Paolino] was the most responsive bidder,” said Smiley. “There were two bids, effectively the same dollar amount....

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Former Providence Mayor and real estate mogul Joe Paolino has set his sights on purchasing a controversial statue. Paolino tells 12 News he’s attempting to preserve the capital city’s Christopher Columbus statue, which has been vandalized numerous times in recent years. “It turned my stomach to see red paint thrown on it,” he said. “It was a slap i...

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