Alana Casanova-Burgess

An hour went by.

I'm sure about that.

Because the top part of the pedestal had also crashed down that morning, the base was now shorter.

And there didn't seem to be an easy way to install the statue.

And meanwhile, in the live feed from the airport... The King's plane had landed a few minutes early at 5.35.

It was an unforgettable spectacle, a split screen with the king on one side getting a red carpet welcome and the conquistador statue on the other swinging from yellow nylon straps.

The audience was Puerto Rico, even though it seemed like the show had been put on for someone else.

That's Puerto Rico.

It was just before 7 p.m.

when the bronze statue of Juan Ponce de Leon was finally reinstalled, with his legs attached to his body and his finger pointing to the south.

The king had yet to drive past the site.

But something was wrong.

The statue leaned to the left, like a lot.

You couldn't, in good faith, stand back and look up at that pedestal and say, Juan Ponce de Leones, standing tall and proud and straight, you know?

Adrián Florido is a reporter at NPR who covers race and identity in the U.S.

And when I told him I was starting this season with this story, he remembered a recording he had made for his side project, documenting Puerto Rico in sound.

A lot of times when you're recording and documenting, you don't know what it means yet.

And I think that's true of what happened with the Ponce de Leon statue.

Adrienne had followed the movement to remove statues of Confederate generals and other figures.

And this moment of reflection that a lot of communities around the world had had about their monuments.