November, 1963: Remembering How Buffalo Remembered JFK

 

By Steve Cichon | steve@buffalostories.com | @stevebuffalo

BUFFALO, NY – John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas 50 years ago today.

Caption from a Courier-Express photo of the JFK memorial service, held on the steps of City Hall, in the days following the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Photos from the event are posted below. (Buffalo Stories/Staffannouncer.com archives )

As the nation mourned, Buffalo mourned, and maybe more so. The largely Catholic Buffalo had a special interest in the nation’s first Catholic president. Hundreds of thousands of Western New Yorkers also had a special connection with Kennedy, having seen him in person during his two visits to the area, one in the weeks leading up to his election in 1960, and another, a year and a half before he was assassinated in 1962. (I wrote a column with more on JFK’s 1960 visit to Buffalo, Niagara Falls, Wheatfield, North Tonawanda, and Lockport earlier this week. )

Here are photos from Buffalo’s two newspapers, the Evening News and the Courier-Express, as a city mourned a President. They are, as published, in mourning and in memory, in the days following the assassination in Dallas.


The somewhat rare first bulletin newspaper





A Buffalonian so distraught he smashed his radio on the floor of his Main Street store upon hearing the news…







People watching the television coverage of the assassination in horror at Buffalo State College’s student union.



Kennedy speaks to 100,000 in Niagara Square in 1962.


JFK greets well-wishers in Niagara Falls in 1960.


Mayor Kowal leads a memorial service.


Mourners on Niagara Square













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Steve Cichon

Steve Cichon writes about Buffalo’s pop culture history. His stories of Buffalo's past have appeared more than 1600 times in The Buffalo News. He's a proud Buffalonian helping the world experience the city he loves. Since the earliest days of the internet, Cichon's been creating content celebrating the people, places, and ideas that make Buffalo unique and special. The 25-year veteran of Buffalo radio and television has written five books and curates The Buffalo Stories Archives-- hundreds of thousands of books, images, and audio/visual media which tell the stories of who we are in Western New York.