NEW YORK — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo observed Columbus Day on Monday by dedicating a statue of the Italian-American saint known as Mother Cabrini in lower Manhattan.

The unveiling of the statue came a year after Cuomo announced that the state would commission a monument to the Roman Catholic nun who was canonized in 1946. It stands in a spot by the Hudson River with a view of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.

St. Frances Xavier Cabrini was born in 1850 in what is now the Lombardy region of Italy. She immigrated to the United States in 1889 and went on to found schools, hospitals and orphanages. She died in 1917.

“Today the lesson of Mother Cabrini is even more vital because of the challenges we are facing,” Cuomo said on Monday.

Cuomo and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, both Democrats, would normally spend Columbus Day marching in the city’s Columbus Day Parade, but this year’s parade was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.