Here in New Haven's "Little Italy" we have great pizza, the names on the funeral parlors are Italian, and we have a playground bocce court (that's never used) but most of the Italian-Americans fled to the 'burbs decades ago. Surprised Chris lasted as long as he did.

Some of my neighbors insist that Columbus ought to be replaced by another Italian-American figure but New Haven's been around for almost 400 years and the neighborhood was dominated by Italian-American's for maybe 75 of those years.

Wooster Square was also home to New Haven's first African-American enclave, New Liberia, and its first Irish enclave, Slineyville.

In 1960 the neighborhood was a quarter African-American but when the Italian Americans concentrated around the Square effectively mobilized to move I-91 east a few blocks to save the Square they engineered the destruction of the most integrated, diverse part of the neighborhood.

Even then, they left. Bob Solomon's piece on New Haven's history of segregation has a great quip on point.

My point, if I have one, is neighborhoods change, this neighborhood has changed, let's replace the statue not with an Italian-American monument, not with another statute at all, but with a tree. Trees have the good sense to embrace growth, change, and evolution.