Why We Are Undertaking the Al Qalam Campaign
Earlier this month, when we published a side-by-side comparison of the original and revised Al Qalam sign, we said that the Washington Street Advocacy Group was not yet prepared to state its position on the historical and civic questions raised by the revision.
After careful thought and further review of the record, we have decided to undertake a campaign. We reached this decision because the concerns surrounding the treatment of ʿAbd al-Masīḥ Ḥaddād are important and need to be addressed.
Public monuments necessarily condense complicated histories. Not every omission or interpretive disagreement warrants a campaign. In this case, however, the revised sign selectively names writers represented by the artwork and assigns them to Lebanon or Syria, but leaves out Haddad even while acknowledging the Pen League’s first formation in 1916. Those present-day national attributions are themselves a consequential and contestable interpretive choice. By sharpening national distinctions among selected writers while omitting a co-founder altogether, the revision compounds rather than resolves the problem in the historical record. The central sculpture also omits him. Haddad was a founding member of al-Rābiṭa al-Qalamiyya, editor of the influential New York Arabic newspaper al-Sāʾiḥ, and an important author of mahjar literature.
Our campaign therefore makes two focused requests. First, an independently administered neutral academic committee should review the sign, including the questions raised by Haddad’s omission, and recommend an accurate, balanced account of the community’s overlapping historical identities. The Washington Street Historical Society may participate and provide relevant records, and the committee should deliver its recommendations to NYC Parks. Second, Haddad’s name should be added in English and Arabic to the central Al Qalam sculpture, following the treatment of the other writers. Its central roster need not match the authors quoted on the benches one-for-one, and the same transparent scholarly process should consider three other Pen League members.
We have also prepared a complete AI-assisted English working translation of Haddad’s 1921 collection, Ḥikāyāt al-Mahjar. One possible reason Haddad has been easier to overlook is that this major work was not available to English-language readers. The translation removes that access barrier, while openly acknowledging that AI-assisted translation is not perfect and does not replace a peer-reviewed critical edition.
This campaign is not an argument against Al Qalam. It is an effort to make an important civic monument more complete, more balanced, and more durable. The concerns are substantial enough that silence would no longer be responsible.