Police remove naked performance artist from former Columbus statue pedestal at Inner Harbor

A naked man momentarily took the place of where the Christopher Columbus statue once stood at the Inner Harbor on Saturday morning.

But like his predecessor, he was taken down from the pedestal.

A man posed as the statue of David in full nudity stood atop the empty stand in the Inner Harbor Saturday morning for nearly three hours allowing others to bask in his chiseled beauty. A few feet below him, papers and drawing utensils laid on the ground, a gesture to welcome any artists who wanted to sketch him.

Onlookers said the firefighters used a cherry picker to pull him off of the mount, almost like a claw machine extracting a toy. He was resistant and unwilling to put his pants on when police tried to lift his legs to do so.

Some bystanders could be heard yelling toward police “get his legs, that’s right, get him by the arms,” when officers finally had to carry him into a police van.

Michelle Lach, 64, a nearby resident who saw the man from her window, said she recognized him as the performance artist that goes by “Ham.” The Baltimore Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“He’s done work in Philly and also New York,” said Lach. “At first he started with having clothes and sunglasses and he’s eventually moved to the performance being completely naked.”

He was holding an umbrella, she added, because he was hoping that he could do this for 24 hours and wanted to have shade throughout the day.

“This is like classic, beautiful art,” she said of the man posing.

There was a large police response to the performance artist. Police vehicles lined President Street and were parked near the statue platform, according to one bystander.

Some people passing by wondered if his performance was meant to be a protest, but it wasn’t clear.

Baltimore police foiled his Fourth of July plans hours after he began ending his performance around 9:30 a.m.