Name: President McKinley statue vandalized as someone tries to topple it
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President McKinley statue vandalized as someone tries to topple it

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AdvertisementBy Chicago TribuneNov 25, 2020 at 2:28 pmChicago police are investigating after a statue of President William McKinley that stands in the park named for him, and for whom the surrounding city neighborhood also is named, was defaced early Wednesday.About 4 a.m., "a citizen flagged down officers to let them know someone was vandalizing the statue," at 2210 W. Pershing Road in McKinley Park, said Sally Bown, a police spokeswoman. She explained that in an attempt to topple it, someone had thrown a rope around the bronze statue, which had been erected in McKinley's honor four years after he was assassinated in 1901, during his second term.Advertisement"Yes, the rope was still on the statue," Bown wrote in an email. Officials think the vandal or vandals attached the other end of the rope to a vehicle's tow hitch, hoping to generate enough force to send it crashing down. "There's no indication that the statue moved at all."Bown said there is a city pod camera near the William McKinley Memorial, which according to the Park District was designed by artist Charles Mulligan and installed in 1905 in the 71-acre McKinley Park — so large that it’s bordered by Pershing Road, Western Boulevard, Archer Avenue, Damen Avenue and 37th Street. Officers are reviewing the camera footage, but as of Wednesday morning Bown said it remained unclear how many people were involved in the property destruction.AdvertisementThe statue also was defaced with spray paint. Bown said she did not know what color paint was used and said words were legible, but she refused to say what was written on the statue. It wasn’t immediately clear how extensive the damage was.The Police Department “would not be the agency to determine the financial estimate of the damage or the methods needed to make any repairs,” she said.Other statues were vandalized this summer, although the circumstances varied.During a violent clash between protesters and Chicago police, at least 18 officers were injured and at least a dozen arrests were made when protesters from a rally supporting Black and Indigenous people marched to the .“Columbus was a murderer. Columbus was a thief,” many in the crowd of about 1,000 protesters chanted.According to the Park District wasn’t the first time a statue of the Italian explorer was removed from that park for that reason — the same thing happened in 1901 when McKinley was assassinated.It said to commission the statue of McKinley to be erected in the park, also newly named in the slain president’s honor, a member of the South Park Board of Commissioners named Daniel Crilly organized a committee of some 35 members, including no less than Marshall Field and Charles Dawes, who would become vice president more than two decades later."As part of the fund-raising effort, the South Park Commissioners agreed to melt down an old, universally disliked, bronze statue of Christopher Columbus which had been located in Grant Park. By reusing the bronze, the cost of the new sculpture was reduced by $2,500," according to the Park District's description of the McKinley Memorial.AdvertisementThat was the statue vandalized early Wednesday. Advertisement

AdvertisementBy Chicago TribuneNov 25, 2020 at 2:28 pmChicago police are investigating after a statue of President William McKinley that stands in the park named for him, and for whom the surrounding city neighborhood also is named, was defaced early Wednesday.About 4 a.m., "a citizen flagged down officers to let them know someone was vandalizing the statue," at 2210 W. Pershing Road in McKinley Park, said Sally Bown, a police spokeswoman. She explained that in an attempt to topple it, someone had thrown a rope around the bronze statue, which had been erected in McKinley's honor four years...

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Katherine Rosenberg-Douglas

The Chicago Tribune is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television are named), it remains the most-read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region. It had the 6th highest circulation for American newspapers in 2017.

President McKinley statue vandalized as someone tries to topple it

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