Philadelphia Art Commission agrees to return Rizzo statue to committee that originally gave it to the city to be restored, relocated

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The Philadelphia Art Commission on Wednesday approved a plan to return a statue honoring former Mayor Frank Rizzo to the committee that originally donated it to the city.

The artwork was donated to the city in 1998 and removed in the spring of 2020 following protests over the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis. Then-Mayor Jim Kenney made the call to remove Rizzo from his perch outside the Municipal Services Building after deeming the statue to be a threat to the city’s public health, safety and welfare.

But there had been calls for the statue to be removed well before that, spearheaded in part by Philly for REAL Justice, which launched the “Frank Rizzo Down” campaign in 2017, pointing to inequality and incidents of police brutality under Rizzo’s administration.

The city’s process for returning the statue to the Frank L. Rizzo Monument Committee is called deaccessioning. The option was included in the original documents that allowed the donation of the art to the city in the late ‘90s.

“We’re going to have it refurbished, cleaned up. We’ve had it looked at by the artist. He gave us some recommendations in terms of how to do that,” said Michael Minsky, who represented the committee at the commission hearing. “In terms of where the statue is going to go, it’s a little bit of a difficult situation in that the statue is Frank Rizzo coming down steps. So the base of the statue requires some sort of structure resembling steps.”

Jody Della Barba, who was Rizzo’s secretary, now chairs the committee tasked with refurbishing and relocating the statue.

“It’s a triumph for the people of Philadelphia, for his family, for his followers and just in general for what’s right,” she said.

The committee isn’t ready to disclose where the statue’s new home will be.

“We’re going to have to get the statue fixed because when they pulled it down, they damaged it near the foot and that’s got to be fixed and then we have to have it moved to where the location is,” Della Barba said. “Hopefully everything will be okay, but the place we picked I think will be very safe.”

She would not elaborate on the location, but sources said it will most likely be a private spot that allows public access.

The late mayor’s son, Frank Rizzo Jr., said he was happy with the art commission’s decision to return the statue to the committee after Kenney’s decision to take it down.

“My father never had a good relationship for Jim Kenney. He didn’t like him. And when Kenney became the mayor, it was like the vendetta. He wanted to go do something that could be hurtful to the Rizzo family,” he said. “I’m glad he’s going to see the daylight again.”

Kenney declined to comment on the decision.