Monday, November 29, 2004
Nick Hornby interviews Sarah Vowell, whose new book, "Assassination Vacation" includes a section on the assassination of William McKinley, here in Buffalo. From time to time, walking past the marble obelisk in front of City Hall that memorializes McKinley, I think about how this national tragedy has so faded into the past that really nobody thinks about why parkways and high schools around here are named for him. Buffalo was the hometown of two Presidents before McKinley: I expect that two out of three people would tell you that this was where McKinley was from, too. The actual site of the shooting is marked by a small plaque on a stone in the middle of a grassy meridian on a nondescript middle class residential street-- if you didn't make a point of finding it, you'd never know it was there. At one time Buffalo was associated with this event the way that Dallas evoked Kennedy-- I wonder if Dallas still carries that meaning for people?
// posted by Bill @ 10:34 AM 
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