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The name of Christopher Columbus may have waned in reputation for much of the world, bringing with it the obvious negative connotations of colonialism, but for the Dominican Republic, Columbus largely remains an heroic figure. So much so that they erected a bizarre, energy draining lighthouse to mark the 500th anniversary of his maiden voyage. You're listening to Tall stories on Monocle Production, brought to you by the team behind the Urbanist. I'm Andrew Tuck. In this episode, Gregory Scruggs tells us the odd tale of Santo Domingo's Columbus Lighthouse.
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I was six years old when the world marked the the 500th anniversary of the year 1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue. My US upbringing in a city named Columbia no less, one of countless places in the Americas. Given that neo Latin toponym was marked by childhood ditties like those now older and wiser, I'm keenly aware of Columbus's more checkered reputation. I've watched, for example, as the annual Columbus Day bank holiday in October morphed into the first national celebration of of Indigenous Peoples Day in 2021 under Joe Biden, and I've likewise seen the pendulum swing back the other direction with a 2025 proclamation by Donald Trump to reclaim Columbus's legacy. But little did my 6 year old self know that while I was humming quincentennial nursery rhymes, the Dominican Republic was busy building a mausoleum. The Faro, a Colon, or Columbus Lighthouse, is a colossal structure that allegedly holds the remains of of the Genoese navigator himself, though DNA testing suggests the right bones are those buried in Seville. And it's not a lighthouse that would have done much good helping the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria find safe harbor. Indeed, the faroacolon is not a traditional lighthouse at all, but rather an 800 meter long horizontal structure that, when illuminated, projects a Latin cross into the night sky, purportedly visible with from as far away as Puerto Rico. And yet the lighthouse keepers rarely flick the switch because the 150 odd searchlight beams are prone to cause blackouts in the surrounding neighborhood. The faroacolon is, in short, a massive act of architectural hubris and one that just barely met its 1992 deadline despite having almost eight decades to prepare. Indeed, the idea for a Columbus Monument was first floated in the 1910s and formally approved at the Fifth Pan American Conference in 1923. Delegates made lofty promises that the Governments and peoples of the Americas would finance this grandiose endeavor and selected Santo Domingo as the eventual host to honor the first European settlement of the New World Christopher's brother Bartholomew founded the city four years after the maiden transatlantic voyage. A design competition was held in Brazil, and young Scottish architect J.L. gleave was chosen by the likes of Frank Lloyd Wright and Eliel Saarinen, father of Ero, who liked the Scotsman's modernist, dare I say, proto brutalist proposal. Unfortunately, reality took the wind out of the monument's sails, but by 1950 only a handful of countries had ponied up a mere $15,000, a paltry 1% of the estimated cost. Although a foundation had been dug, the project sat on the back burner until 1986, the year I was born. When the looming quincentennial kick started the effort, Dominican architect Teofilo Carbonell dusted off Gleave's drawings and brought the mammoth reinforced concrete structure to fruition. Adorned with inscriptions from ancient Greeks and Roman authors alongside biblical passages, the edifice is a monument not just to Columbus himself, but to the arrival of the west and especially Christianity, to the New World. In short, there is no room for revisionism in this brash, chauvinistic display. Columbus is a civilizational hero. Period. End of story. Inside, a Gothic crypt with Columbus alleged remains commands pride of place at the center of the cross. But what I found more curious were the wings where every country in the Americas, plus all those from outside the hemisphere who also donated to the eventual 70 million dollar project, is given a room to showcase their nation. Some without working lights, granted, but exhibition space nonetheless. The result is a time capsule from the year 1992, with east and West Germany still freshly reunified and Russia not quite sure what to call itself. None of the displays go much beyond shilling for the National Tourism Board or EPCOT center level education about foreign cultures. But their mere presence speaks to a still somewhat realized Pan American vision hatched nearly a century ago. There is something vaguely admirable about the stubborn refusal to see Columbus as anything other than than an unimpeachable giant. Obstinance that results in thousands of tons of concrete the size of several city blocks is an impressive amount of dedication. But perhaps even that facade is slowly cracking, as the most compelling exhibition I visited in Santo Domingo was not among these fading displays of national pride from 30 years ago, but those in a new museum about the Taino people, the island's original inhabitants, opened some 18 months ago on the ironically named Calle Isabel the Catholic. While the museum doesn't directly indict Columbus, its mere presence speaks to a certain revisionism creeping into Dominican discourse. The same kind that has revised the nursery rhymes. My own children will learn about the namesake of their father's hometown.
- [06:34]
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Tall Stories is a Monocle production brought to you by the team behind the Urbanist. This episode was written by Gregory Scruggs and produced and edited by David Stevens. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to receive new episodes every week. I'm Ajah Tuck. Goodbye and thank you for listening. City Lover.
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