Civic Virtue Up and Gone: Report

The battle to keep the Triumph of Civic Virtue in Queens has ended in defeat. 

Over the objections of a vociferous group of preservationists, city officials picked up and moved the controversial statue on Saturday, according to the New York Daily News.

The statue will be restored before its move to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, where it will join other works of art on the private property. 

In a last-ditch effort to save the statue, a group of Queens residents put together a civic group to try and convince the city to at least hold a public hearing, but to no avail. 

The statue has been a lightning rod for controversy for nearly a century, and was moved to Queens from City Hall decades ago after Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia got tired of seeing its naked backside. 

In recent years, the statue came under fire for its depiction of women, though defenders say the women in the statue are actually allegorical representations of "vice" and "corruption." 

Queens Borough President Helen Marshall has said she'd like to see a memorial to influential Queens women in the statue's place.

Read more about the move in the New York Daily News.