Gastown is the original settlement that became the core of the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and a national historic site and a neighbourhood in the northwest section of the Downtown Eastside, adjacent to Downtown Vancouver.
John Deighton, better known as "Gassy Jack", was a bar-owner in British Columbia. The Gastown neighbourhood of Vancouver, British Columbia takes its name from him.
Monument Avenue is a tree-lined grassy mall dividing the eastbound and westbound traffic in Richmond, Virginia, originally named for its emblematic complex of structures honoring those who fought for the Confederacy during the American Civil War. Between 1900 and 1925, Monument Avenue greatly expanded with architecturally significant houses, churches, and apartment buildings. Four of the bronze statues representing J. E. B. Stuart, Stonewall Jackson, Jefferson Davis and Matthew Fontaine Maury were removed from their memorial pedestals amidst civil unrest in July 2020. The Robert E. Lee monument was handled differently as it was owned by the Commonwealth, in contrast with the other monuments which were owned by the city. Dedicated in 1890, it was removed on September 8, 2021. All these monuments, including their pedestals, have now been removed completely from the Avenue. The last remaining statue on Monument Avenue is the Arthur Ashe Monument, memorializing the African-American tennis champion, dedicated in 1996.
The Gastown riot, known also in the plural as Gastown riots, also known as "The Battle of Maple Tree Square", occurred in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on August 7, 1971. Following weeks of arrests by undercover drug squad members in Vancouver as part of a special police operation directed by City hall, police broke up a protest smoke-in in the Gastown neighbourhood. The smoke-in was organized by the Youth International Party against the use of undercover agents and in favour of the legalization of marijuana. Of around two thousand protesters, 79 were arrested and 38 were charged.
The John A. Macdonald Memorial was a public sculpture in bronze of John A. Macdonald by Sonia de Grandmaison and John Cullen Nugent, formerly located at the south entrance to Victoria Park, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. In March 2021, Regina city council voted to remove the statue and it was removed in April 2021.
Granville was the name from 1870 to 1886 for what would become the townsite of Vancouver, British Columbia. The townsite included the original settlement of Gastown.
Vandalism of art is intentional damage of an artwork. The object, usually exhibited in public, becomes damaged as a result of the act, and remains in place right after the act. This may distinguish it from art destruction and iconoclasm, where it may be wholly destroyed and removed, and art theft, or looting.
The Albert Pike Memorial is a public artwork in Washington, D.C., erected in 1901, and partially demolished in 2020 by protestors responding to the murder of George Floyd. It honors Albert Pike (1809–1891), a senior officer of the Confederate States Army as well as a poet, lawyer, and influential figure in the Scottish Rite of freemasonry. The memorial—which now only includes the base and Goddess of Masonry sculpture—sits near the corner of 3rd and D Streets NW in the Judiciary Square neighborhood. The memorial's two bronze figures were sculpted by Gaetano Trentanove, the Italian-American sculptor of another Washington, D.C., sculptural landmark, the Daniel Webster Memorial. The dedication ceremony in 1901 was attended by thousands of Masons who marched in a celebratory parade.
The Statue of Edward Cornwallis was a bronze sculpture of the military/political figure Edward Cornwallis atop a large granite pedestal with plaques. It had been erected in 1931 in an urban square in the south end of Halifax, Nova Scotia, opposite the Canadian National Railway station. Cornwallis was the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia (1749–1752) and established Halifax in 1749. A Cornwallis Memorial Committee was struck in the 1920s and a statue was raised to pay tribute to Cornwallis and to promote tourism.
The Robert E. Lee Monument in Richmond, Virginia, was the first installation on Monument Avenue in 1890, and would ultimately be the last monument removed from the site. Before its removal on September 8, 2021, the monument honored Confederate Civil War General Robert E. Lee, depicted on a horse atop a large marble base that stood over 60 feet (18 m) tall. Constructed in France and shipped to Virginia, it remained the largest installation on Monument Avenue for over a century; it was first listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007 and the Virginia Landmarks Register in 2006.
A bronze sculpture of American pioneer, newspaper editor and historian Harvey W. Scott (1838–1910) by Gutzon Borglum, sometimes called Harvey Scott or Harvey W. Scott, was installed on Mount Tabor in Portland, Oregon, United States, until being toppled in October 2020.
More than 160 monuments and memorials to the Confederate States of America and associated figures have been removed from public spaces in the United States, all but five since 2015. Some have been removed by state and local governments; others have been torn down by protestors.
The Monument to Christopher Columbus was a statue on a major traffic roundabout along Mexico City's Paseo de la Reforma, first dedicated in 1877.
The J. E. B. Stuart Monument is a deconstructed monument to Confederate general J. E. B. Stuart at the head of historic Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia, which was dedicated in 1907. The equestrian statue of General Stuart was removed from its pedestal and placed into storage on July 7, 2020 after having stood there for 113 years. The removal was in response to nationally reported events of police brutality and a corresponding emergency declaration in Virginia. The granite pedestal, which stood empty for nineteen months, was finally dismantled in February 2022.
A bronze statue of Christopher Columbus was installed on the grounds of the Minnesota State Capitol in Saint Paul, Minnesota in 1931. The 10-foot statue was created by Italian American Carlo Brioschi.
A number of statues and memorials have been the subject of protests and petitions during the George Floyd protests in the United Kingdom in 2020.
A 30-foot (9.1 m) tall statue of Junípero Serra was installed in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, in the U.S. state of California. It had first been erected in 1907 and sculpted by Douglas Tilden. The memorial was toppled on June 19, 2020, during the George Floyd protests, as a Juneteenth commemoration. The next day another memorial for Serra was torn down in Los Angeles at Father Serra Park by about five dozen indigenous activists. Other statues of Junípero Serra were involved as the protests expanded to include monuments of individuals associated with the controversy over the genocide of indigenous peoples in the Americas. Demonstrators also toppled or otherwise vandalized the statues of Francis Scott Key, Ulysses S. Grant, and a group consisting of Don Quixote and his companion, Sancho Panza kneeling to honor their creator, Cervantes.
A statue of Captain James Cook stood in Victoria, British Columbia, from 1976 until 2021, when it was toppled in a protest. It was a fibreglass copy of a bronze statue of 1912 by John Tweed in Whitby, Yorkshire, England. The Victoria Environmental Enhancement Foundation commissioned the work from Derek and Patricia Freeborn to mark the 200th anniversary of Cook's departure on his third voyage in 1776. The statue was unveiled on July 12, 1976, by William Richards Bennett, Premier of British Columbia. It stood on the Causeway, facing the Fairmont Empress hotel, with its back to the Inner Harbour.
A number of monuments and memorials in Canada were removed or destroyed as a result of protests and riots between 2020 and 2022. These included six sculptures of Sir John A. Macdonald, the first prime minister of Canada, three of other figures connected to the Canadian Indian residential school system, two of Canadian monarchs, one of the British explorer Captain James Cook and one of John Deighton, a bar-owner whose nickname inspired the name of Vancouver's Gastown district.
