In the case of Frank Rizzo, out of sight does not always mean out of mind.
The former mayor and police commissioner died 35 years ago. A 10-foot bronze statue reminded Philadelphians of his presence for decades, until civil rights protests in 2020 culminated in the monument’s removal from public display.
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It might have lost its prime spot outside the Municipal Services Building, across from City Hall. But, six years later, the statue remainsa subject of interest, leaving reader JJ Cutuli to ask Curious Philly, The Inquirer’s forum for questions about the city: “Where is the Frank Rizzo statue, right now?”
The short answer? Now that repairs have been made, the search for a new home is on. Here’s how we got here.
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The last thing Cutuli heard on the Rizzo statue saga was that it was set to be returned to the Frank L. Rizzo Monument Committee, after a settlement was reached with the Philadelphia Art Commission last summer.
“I am very much against the statue, against the man, against what it all represents,” Cutuli said. “But sweeping it under the rug or sending it to a scrap yard might take away the opportunity to deal with the issues that it represents.”
Rizzo has long been a controversial figure. During the 1960s and 1970s, he was accused from different fronts in the city of having allowed police to function with little oversight, putting particularly people of color in a vulnerable spot.
Between 1970 and 1978, police shot civilians at a rate of one per week, according to an Inquirer investigation. That led critics to condemn Rizzo as a racist, and protesterseven put a Ku Klux Klan hood on the statue’s head in 2016.
“The statue is a deplorable monument to racism, bigotry, and police brutality for members of the Black community, the LGBTQ community, and many others. The treatment of these communities under Mr. Rizzo’s leadership was among the worst periods in Philadelphia’s history,” Then-Mayor Jim Kenney said in a statement in 2020, when the city removed the statue overnight.
For supporters, however, the South Philly native was a beacon of Italian American pride whose tough approach on crime could have been misunderstood.
“He was a brute in some respects. But it wasn’t racist,” George Bochetto, an attorney for the Frank L. Rizzo Monument Committee, told The Inquirer in 2016. “It was law and order, it was crime, and I think he got a bad rap, frankly.”
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The agreement left the committee with an $80,000 payment from the city for damages caused to the statue during its removal.
“They put it on the back of a flat bed truck and a piece of the base broke off so they had to replace that base,” Bochetto said. “There were also a lot of scratches and gouges on the body of the statue, which had to be repaired too.”
The bronze Rizzo has been at a foundry undergoing “expensive five-figure repairs,” Bochetto said.
Restorations are now done, according to the lawyer. The next frontier is finding a new home for the Rizzo statue.
As part of the 2025 agreement, the statue should be displayed on private property, and in a way that makes it “not visible from the public right of way,” the agreement states.
An exception can happen if the committee gets approval from Mayor Cherelle L. Parker or the managing director. Bochetto said that’s something the committee is working on. Bochetto did not describe locations being considered for the statue.
The city did not reply to a request for information. So, the status of the monument’s home remains uncertain.
Controversy aside, Bochetto said, it’s important to recognize that the statue is part of Philadelphia’s history.
“People say that symbols like this from the past are a part of our history and that is true,” Cutuli said. “But as part of history perhaps these things do have a place in museums or perhaps they don’t, perhaps the story and the facts can exist without the statue.”