Thomas Jefferson Statue

This depiction of the third U.S. president is the original plaster sculpture used to make the bronze version on display in the Capitol rotunda in Washington, D.C.

For more than a century, a 7-foot statue of Thomas Jefferson stood in New York City Council chambers, honoring his role as a founding father and author of the Declaration of Independence. In recent decades, Black and Latino council members criticized the statue as a painful symbol of Jefferson’s legacy as a slaveholder, a debate intensified amid a national reckoning over public monuments. City officials voted unanimously to remove the statue but postponed deciding its new location, citing concerns about precedent for other artworks. The delay frustrated lawmakers who had expected the statue to be relocated to the New-York Historical Society, where it would be presented with fuller historical context.