Casimir Pulaski

Casimir Pulaski, one of three monuments erected on the Parkway by immigrant groups, in this case, the Poles.

This statue was erected by local Polish immigrants in 1930, the middle of three statutes located on the Parkway that were erected by the largest immigrant and ethnic groups in Utica in the first half of the twentieth century; the other two are the statues of General von Steuben (1914) and Columbus (1952), which were dedicated by the Germans and the Italians, respectively.

The statue of Pulaski, a Pole who is known as the “father of the American cavalry” for his service in the American Revolution, is the creation of Sicilian immigrant Joseph P. Pollia, whose most famous work is an equestrian statue of Stonewall Jackson at the Manassas National Battlefield Park in Virginia. This statue is located on the Oneida Street end of a wide median of parkland on the other end of which is the statue of George Dunham, created by another Sicilian artist, Filippo Sgarlata.

In addition, this is not the only statue dedicated by local Poles—across the street from the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute on Genesee Street is one of the Polish astronomer Nicholas Copernicus, which was dedicated in 1975.