In the end, the con­ten­tious old statue at Schen­ley Plaza didn’t put up any fight.

Fas­ten­ers that once tied the bronze piece to a gran­ite base had rot­ted long ago. When city work­ers showed up about dawn Thurs­day, it took them less than an hour to hoist, lower and then se­cure the Ste­phen Foster sculp­ture in a flat­bed truck bound for stor­age.

“The only thing that was un­ex­pected [was] that it went smoother than I was hop­ing,” said Tom Sam­stag, act­ing con­struc­tion su­per­vi­sor in the city Depart­ment of Pub­lic Works.

Chris Potter

What to do with a Stephen Foster statue with a black man at his feet?

Work­ers es­ti­mated the city-owned statue weighs 800 pounds and its base more than six tons, Mr. Sam­stag said. Driv­ers hauled them both from Oak­land to a city fa­cil­ity in High­land Park, shielded from pub­lic view while Mayor Bill Peduto’s ad­min­is­tra­tion tries to find the cen­tury-old art­work a per­ma­nent spot.

The move fol­lowed an Oc­to­ber de­ci­sion by the Pitts­burgh Art Com­mis­sion, which found that the statue should be re­moved within six months and hosted in a pri­vate, “prop­erly con­tex­tu­alized” lo­ca­tion. Many res­i­dents have held that the sculp­ture — show­ing a shoe­less African-Amer­i­can banjo player seated at the famed com­poser’s feet — is con­de­scend­ing or out­right rac­ist. Speak­ers at com­mis­sion meet­ings last year largely agreed.

“Ob­vi­ously, it was pop­u­lar and mean­ing­ful to the peo­ple of Pitts­burgh back when it was placed” in 1900, Peduto spokes­man Tim­o­thy McNulty said. Clearly, he said, time shifted the pub­lic’s view.

At least a cou­ple of pass­ers-by hol­lered — one against the re­moval, the other for it — as news crews and about 10 pub­lic-works em­ploy­ees gath­ered at the statue Thurs­day. A back­hoe lifted the sculp­ture with ease, fol­low­ing a plan that was two to three months in the mak­ing.

The Peduto ad­min­is­tra­tion made clear last fall that it would honor the panel de­ci­sion and pull the piece, al­though the gen­eral pub­lic wasn’t told pre­cisely when. The city alerted re­port­ers Wed­nes­day but placed the in­for­ma­tion un­der an em­bargo, mean­ing it couldn’t be dis­trib­uted un­til 7 a.m. the next day.

Mr. McNulty said he “just wanted to let the pub­lic-works guys do their job with­out too much in­ter­fer­ence be­cause it’s a very sen­si­tive job to them.” News me­dia asked for an ad­vi­sory be­fore the re­moval, he said.

Dan Majors

City's art commission unanimous: Statue of Stephen Foster needs to go

Ear­lier this week, Mr. Peduto said the city had reached out to more than a dozen or­ga­ni­za­tions to find the Foster statue a new home. So far, none was able or in­ter­ested enough to take it, he said. Dis­cus­sions are con­tin­u­ing.

“We’ll find a lo­ca­tion that’s ap­pro­pri­ate. We’ll take the time to do it right,” Mr. Peduto said, not­ing the sculp­ture was moved in the 1940s from an ini­tial perch in High­land Park. The ad­min­is­tra­tion wouldn’t say which groups re­cently de­clined to play host.

Still, Peduto chief of staff Dan Gil­man said it’s im­por­tant that the lo­ca­tion be cho­sen through a pub­lic ef­fort.

“For us, it’s more about the pro­cess than the fi­nal de­ter­mi­na­tion,” he said. While the city should rec­og­nize his­tory, the statue should be sit­u­ated where peo­ple can ex­plore its back­ground, in­tent and nu­ances in full con­text, in­clud­ing why it of­fends, Mr. Gil­man said.

Foster, a Pitts­burgh na­tive, com­posed well-known songs in­clud­ing “Oh! Su­san­nah” and “My Old Ken­tucky Home.” He died at age 37 in 1864.

In place of his statue, the Peduto ad­min­is­tra­tion wants to honor an African-Amer­i­can woman — or women — at the same site near For­bes Avenue. The idea builds on an Oc­to­ber 2017 news­pa­per col­umn by his­to­rian Jessie B. Ramey, who urged the rec­og­ni­tion of women in pub­lic art.

She of­fered seven sug­ges­tions, in­clud­ing Gwen­dolyn J. El­li­ott, the Pitts­burgh po­lice bu­reau’s first black fe­male com­mander; abo­li­tion­ist Cath­er­ine Delany; and singer Mary Card­well Daw­son, who started the Card­well School of Mu­sic in Home­wood. The seven are among pros­pects for the new statue’s hon­oree or hon­orees.

“You have so many op­tions that I think would be hard to choose [only] one,” said Kim Ol­day, 55, of Wilkins­burg. She joined about 20 oth­ers Wed­nes­day at Naz­a­rene Bap­tist Church in Home­wood, which hosted the third of five com­mu­nity meet­ings on the plan.

At­tend­ees said the new piece should fore­shadow more rec­og­ni­tion of African Amer­i­can women in Pitts­burgh’s pub­lic art. No ex­ist­ing mon­u­ments in the city rep­resent the de­mo­graphic, ac­cord­ing to the ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“It shouldn’t be a one-shot job. It shouldn’t be a one-shot won­der,” said Donna Al­ex­an­der, 66, of Wilkins­burg, who is Ms. Ol­day’s sis­ter. She urged com­mu­nity pro­grams, per­haps a scav­en­ger hunt, to help young­sters ex­plore ar­tis­tic works.

More con­ver­sa­tions on the fu­ture statue are slated for 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Tues­day at the Sheraden Healthy Ac­tive Liv­ing Center, 720 Sh­er­wood Ave., and from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Thurs­day at the Hill House As­so­ci­a­tion, 1835 Cen­tre Ave., Hill Dis­trict. Free reg­is­tra­tion is avail­able at https://​bit.ly/​2GOR2jz.

Adam Smeltz: 412-263-2625, as­meltz@post-ga­zette.com, @as­meltz.

First Published: April 26, 2018, 11:01 a.m.
Updated: April 26, 2018, 11:07 a.m.