The Birth of The New World Statue, known around Puerto Rico as the Statue of Columbus, is a 360 feet bronze statue located in Arecibo. The ride there is pretty nice and you can appreciate many of our island’s beautiful landscapes. However, there’s not much to do at the Statue’s site because the TerraVista Park, which is said to have restaurants, zipline, kayaks and more by 2020, is still under construction, but you can say you visited a pretty incredible piece of architecture. It’s $3 to enter the lot to see it, so that’s a plus too. With the money you save you can go visit some of the great “chinchorros” (food spots that serve amazing Puerto Rican street food) that are close by.
This statue, work of russian architect Zurab Tsereteli, is currently the tallest in the United States and the fourth tallest in the World. It is surpassed only by Laykyun Sekkya in Myanmar (380 ft), the Spring Temple Statue in China (420 ft) and The Statue of Unity in India (597 ft). It started production in 1991 to commemorate Christopher Columbus’ first voyage. The three sails it features behind him are representative of his three ships: La Nina, La Pinta and Santa Maria. After years of building, the statue finally got to the island in 2016 and officially opened in 2017.
Personally, I believe this was a pretty foolish investment. It cost over 2 million to an island heavily in debt, to transfer the statue over here. All that money could’ve been used in more efficient ways. What makes matters worse is that we’re honoring a man that forced himself into this island and stole all our gold from us. He slaughtered our men and raped our women. The fact that we accepted this “gift” is so strange to me.
Photo taken from: www.elespanol.com
Location: Islote, Arecibo 00612
Yeats, W.B. (1920). The Second Coming. The Dial, p. 238
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