It’s Still Barely Columbus Day In Lower Merion
Update 2023
The Lower Merion Township website still has a few vestigial references to Columbus Day and still makes no reference to Indigenous Peoples Day.
The Post Office is still closed for Columbus Day.
On the Lower Merion School District Website, there is no mention of Columbus Day. There are references there to Indigenous People, but not Indigenous Peoples Day.
Today is Indigenous Peoples Day in the City of Philadelphia, and in recognition of that – schools, city agencies and libraries are closed. There is also no trash pickup today in Philadelphia.
Most banks are also closed today, as is the post office. And there is no UPS delivery – because it’s Columbus Day.
In Lower Merion however, it’s also Columbus Day. On the Township website, Indigenous Peoples Day does not yet exist.
Schools, the township building and libraries are open, and trash collections this week are on a non-holiday schedule.
Philadelphia Court Rules to Keep Cardboard Box Covering Columbus Statue https://t.co/GOvaVZFFEo #ushistory #columbusday pic.twitter.com/xqtKdItJ0R
— Edward T. O'Donnell, Historian-at-Large (@InThePastLane) October 11, 2021
And unlike in Philadelphia, where Columbus stands villified, encased in a cardboard box at Marconi Plaza. in South Philadelphia – at the Ludington Library, in Bryn Mawr, the bust of the Italian explorer, who probably didn’t discover America, sits unencumbered, atop an obelisk-like pillar, as it has since it was erected in 1952.