With the exception of his father’s death in 2018, Juan Blea described the day of the Soldiers’ Monument toppling as “one of the saddest days of my life.”

Five years after the more than 150-year-old monument to Civil War soldiers was destroyed during an Indigenous Peoples Day protest on the Santa Fe Plaza, Blea’s emotions about its destruction are still raw.

“It’s a big, gaping wound for me,” Blea said.

He was one of several eyewitnesses who described the obelisk’s toppling Oct. 12, 2020, in those terms. They also sharply criticized outgoing Mayor Alan Webber for the monument’s destruction and the city’s slow pace of determining how to move forward.

The city earlier this year entered into a contract with Albuquerque-based CSR Architects to study the feasibility of rebuilding the obelisk

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