Teddy Roosevelt Statue Vandalized At American Museum Of Natural History

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — A statue of President Theodore Roosevelt at the Central Park West entrance to the American Museum of Natural History was splattered with red paint Thursday morning, an NYPD spokesman told Patch.

The statue vandalism likely occurred between the hours of 4 and 7 a.m., an NYPD spokesman told Patch. The monument — which depicts a mounted Roosevelt flanked by African-American and Native American men — has previously been protested as racist.

The NYPD hate crimes unit will assist in the investigation of the vandalism, an NYPD spokesman told Patch. No arrests have been made in connection with the crime, police said.

A group called the Monument Removal Brigade released a statement Thursday taking credit for splashing the red paint on the Roosevelt statue, calling the act public art instead of vandalism.

Now the statue is bleeding. We did not make it bleed. It is bloody at its very foundation. This is not an act of vandalism. It is a work of public art and an act of applied art criticism. We have no intent to damage a mere statue. The true damage lies with patriarchy, white supremacy, and settler-colonialism embodied by the statue. It is these forms of oppression that must be damaged again and again…until they are damaged out of existence.

Mayor Bill de Blasio's Commission on City Art, Monuments and Markers has so far only held one one closed-door meeting and has not disclosed which landmarks are included in its 90-day review. Creating the commission was de Blasio's way of dealing with a national debate about how to deal with monuments of once-revered historical figures who are now abhorrent in the public eye.

Thursday's vandalism, or public art depending on who you ask, isn't likely to affect the actions of the mayor's commission. City Cultural Affairs Commissioner Tom Finkelpearl, who serves as co-chair of the mayor's commission, told Patch: "There's no place for vandalism in this conversation."

A spokesman for the American Museum of Natural History did not immediately return Patch's request for comment.

Read the group's full statement.

Photo: Courtesy of Twitter user Sean M. Kennedy