Johnny Lombardi Monument Essay

Through exploring the geography of everyday life within Toronto, we are also able to explore the presence or absence of power. One of the ways in which we can view relations of power within a city is through the use of analyzing and exploring monuments. Within the GTA, there are numerous amounts of monuments present that commemorate or provide remembrance of the city, various individuals or a variety of different groups and communities. According to Donohoe (2002), we all encounter monuments however we may not necessarily notice them within our everyday lives. A Monument is a structure that calls for individuals to be reminded and mindful of important events or the lives of individuals (Donohoe, 2002). They provide the power of retelling history

As a result, this paper seeks to explore the Piazza Johnny Lombardi monument to demonstrate the ways in which monuments establish a sense of meaning to a given area. Exploring how this monument is used as a way to view the city as a cultural artifact will demonstrate the importance of history. In addition, the monument helps to recognize the importance of place and time. Lastly, this paper will investigate how the Lombardi monument demonstrates how urban spaces can often be viewed as creating assertions of power.

It is important to understand that, many individuals believe that monuments play various roles within urban spaces. For instance, James Mellon (2008) understands the city as a work of art and expresses the notion of space, place and meaning in order to emphasize how place

While the Piazza Johnny Lombardi monument wishes to evoke a sense of remembrance of multiculturalism, Nicholas Harney (2006), expresses his concerns that certain monuments can create power for groups of individuals over others. He believes that “ the placing of monuments and institutions are assertions of group presence in, familiarity with and control over specific territories.” (Harney, 2006, p.26). The Piazza Johnny Lombardi monument can be seen as an example of this because it is placed in a location that is prominently of Italian individuals which can be viewed as the Italian community having claims over this urban space. Having this monument present in little Italy, allows for the image of the Italian community to be consumed by the public. Although, the creation of the Lombardi monument was not to give power to the Italian community over other communities within Toronto, this raises many questions and concerns with the politics of power in certain places. This can also be related to the ideas that Wells (2007) provide in demonstrating how monuments are created as a way of governmental power, however in this case it can be viewed as the power of the Italian community. The ideas of