Mayor de Blasio's off-the-wall plan to take down the City Hall portraits of white historical figures is not only dumb, it's also "condescending'' to minorities, a former city official said Saturday.
"The premise is stupid,'' said Michele Bogart, an ex-vice president of the Public Design Commission, which overseas the portrait collection.
"You take down the dead white men because they represent something you don't like in history instead of the portraits being a point of conversation. Use it as a teaching tool.''
De Blasio and his wife, Chirlane McCray, want to banish the portraits of former mayors, presidents and military heroes — some by famous artists — to make way for art that "celebrates'' the city's "diversity.''
A nonprofit organization founded by former Mayor Michael Bloomberg raised $1.7 million to conserve the art.
"I don't think it's appropriate for the mayor to be bashing the previous mayor through the portrait collection,'' Bogart said.
Michele Bogart is now a professor at Stony Brook University.Photo: Zandy Mangold
She noted, "Black historians agree with me,'' adding, "It's fine to add diversity, maybe commission new pieces, but don't remove what's already there.
"The way they want them removed it assumes that blacks and Hispanics somehow can't handle learning about people from the past. It's dumbing down history and it's condescending.
"Instead of saying, 'It upsets me to see a portrait of a man who owned slaves,' the portraits can teach children about America and where we are today,'' she said.
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