By Gus Saltonstall
On a cold night in January of 2022, the controversial “Equestrian Statue of President Theodore Roosevelt,” by James Earle Fraser, was taken down and hauled away from its spot on the Upper West Side in front of the American Museum of Natural History, where it had stood since 1939, greeting visitors to the museum.
For years, critics of the statue had argued that the piece of art conveyed an image of subservience, racism, and colonization, and did not align with the American Museum of Natural History’s mission. The statute depicts Roosevelt on horseback, towering over a Native American and a Black man, who are half clad and on foot.
The Roosevelt family, the museum, and then-Mayor Bill de Blasio all supported the removal of the bronze sculpture, but the question arose, where would the statue would go?
The answer? North Dakota.
The Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library was in the process of being built in Medora, North Dakota, at the time, where the statue would be sent on a “long-term loan.”
On July 4, 2026, the $450 million presidential library honoring Roosevelt opened after years of construction. Missing from the opening and many exhibits included in the new library though? The former Upper West Side statue of Roosevelt.
West Side Rag reached out to the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library for more information.
“We took possession of the statue after the exhibits and building were conceived and due to the size and weight there was not place in the building for it to reside on display for opening,” Matt Briney, the chief communications officer of the library, wrote to the Rag in an email.
Briney continued that there would be a “breather moment” in the aftermath of the opening, before the library’s council of historians and community voices would “begin to develop a plan for the statue.”
“The board of the TR Library believes the Equestrian Statue is problematic in its composition,” a press release said. “The agreement with the City allows the TR Library to relocate the statue for storage while considering a display that would enable it to serve as an important tool to study the nation’s past.”
In terms of where exactly the statue was being stored or if any photos were available, that was top secret information.
“For security reasons we’re not willing to release photos of where the statue is stored,” Briney wrote. “However it is in our museum-level climate controlled storage facility in North Dakota.”
He added that updates would be provided as plans for the former Upper West Side statue developed.
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Ah yes another reminder of the peak Woke moral panic that drove scores of people into Trump’s coalition. Good times.
Yes because getting a statue back was so worth the generational loss of women’s healthcare and preventative medicine. Damn those liberals and their morals!
Where are the women who lost healthcare?
Ah, yes, liberals and their monopoly on morals. BLM and their Lamborghinis, just reward for their freedom fighting. Antifa and their righteous looting and firebombing businesses. Pelosi – “for the people” – and her $200mm hedge fund. Bernie – the icon of the people – and his private jet flights. Etc etc.
Someone stopped you from tracking your A1C and visiting your obgyn?
“Someone stopped you from tracking your A1C and visiting your obgyn?”
For the 3 million people who lost their ACA coverage, yes.
You realize the board of the TR museum located in the not especially woke state of North Dakota also agreed the statue is “problematic”?
Yes, my take is that museum staff around the world are more or less the same coterie of liberal arts majors.
They’re probably terrified of the woke mob showing up at their door.
A woke mob in North Dakota! Great title for a satirical movie!
Well, they already showed up for the Dakota Access pipeline protests
Remember the final scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark where they show where they put the box storing the Ark of the Covenant??
It’s probably in there somewhere, being looked after by “top men….TOP men”:)
Seriously though, I’ll never understand why they didn’t just leave it and remove his two ‘guides’ from the overall piece.
I still miss seeing Teddy every time I’m by the museum, which is a lot. He belongs there.
“why they didn’t just leave it and remove his two ‘guides’ from the overall piece”
This is just me, but I’m thinking that mutilating a piece of art just isn’t what museums do.
Yea, you can’t really do that to art work. It’s not a barn!
I want it back in front of the Museum of Natural History where it belongs. And while we’re at it, put back the statue of Thomas Jefferson in the NYC Council chambers.
I miss the statue also.
Just put all these statues back. The liberals are just as bad as the Maga removing history.
Statues aren’t “history”. They interpret or provide a narrative about history.
They can be both
Good heavens, if the moronic wokeness of NYC has infected North Dakota, we’re all doomed!
So North Dakota museums are as idiotically woke as New York museums.
“it is in our museum-level climate controlled storage facility in North Dakota.”
Funny, considering its previous location.
I believe the statue belongs to the NYC Parks Sept. not the museum
The museum has much information about the statue here: https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/addressing-the-statue
I miss seeing that beautiful statue every time I am on CPW. I always thought it served to honor TR’s companions, not demean them. I hope it will be displayed and appreciated in its new home. Our loss.
I can look at the statue and see both sides. Sometimes I think the 2 men on the sides look bothered or belittled by their position, and sometimes I think they look very proud of their roles in brave expeditions. Isn’t that a good thing? Shouldn’t we leave history where it sits to encourage conversation, instead of trying to erase it?
This comments section gives me hope
Send it to Sagamore Hill where the artistry and craft will be appreciated and properly contextualized, not unfairly retrofitted with some woke misinterpretation. What’s next? The canceled edition of “A Night At The Museum” where Teddy is replaced by a talking triceratops?
Amazing that a statue that resided in NYC weather & tolerated pigeons & traffic fumes needs a climate controlled environment to be stored or seen by the public.
Now, the good people if North Dakota are rushing at tortoise speed to determine if the statue they wanted is suitable for viewing.
Maybe they want to rethink if TR is entitled to a museum or library.
Considering the way No. Dakota pols & many of their cronies physically attacked the AmerIndian residents fighting the destructive gas/oil pipeline on their land, hypocrisy still reigns.
This statue is embarrassing at best. I definitely don’t miss it. What’s the big deal about wanting a statue that represents a Black man and a Native man with dignity, rather than this ridiculous one of them at Teddy’s side? I wouldn’t want to be depicted like that myself.
When I recently visited a few national parks including the Grand Canyon, (which was incredible beyond words), I learned from the Native people of that region and the park rangers about how the canyon had been their home for thousands of years until the US government and settlers forced them off. “Read about the Long Walk” was what one man from the Diné tribe told us, a walk of genocide for his people where were violently and forcibly pushed off the land.
A statue like this erases that history and is disrespectful of their ancestors. NYC can do better.
You have it backwards. Removing statues erases history, not erecting them.