Downtown Buffalo’s McKinley Monument getting $650K makeover

BUFFALO, N.Y. – A downtown Buffalo landmark commemorating the assassination of President William McKinley is getting a major makeover.

Mayor Byron Brown announced Monday that the McKinley Monument in front of Buffalo City Hall in Niagara Square will undergo a nearly $650,000 rehabilitation. The work will include replacing missing and damaged marble on the 110-year-old monument.

The nation’s 25th president was fatally shot by an assassin while visiting the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo on Sept. 6, 1901. The monument was dedicated on the sixth anniversary of the shooting.

The monument includes a 96-foot-tall marble obelisk with a fountain at its base.

Brown says the restoration work is expected to be completed in early September in time to mark the assassination’s 116th anniversary and the monument dedication’s 110th anniversary.