This monument commemorates the 35th president of the United States, John F. Kennedy. In 1986, the Hungarian-born Canadian sculptor Paul Lancz was finally rewarded for years of effort to find a permanent site for his artwork. Almost 20 years after it was produced, it was installed on Avenue du Président-Kennedy. In 2011, the statue was moved to a different site on the same street due to development of the Quartier des spectacles. Sponsored by the Birks Family Foundation, this bronze bust, sitting on a granite pedestal, is a portrait of the charismatic public figure eight times larger than life size. It is regarded as a reminder of the international vocation of the Ville de Montréal. With the permission of the president’s widow, a copy of this bust was first put on exhibit in the Kennedy Library at Harvard University in Boston, the president’s birthplace.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born on 29 May 1917 in Brookline, a suburb of Boston. After graduating from Harvard University in 1940, he enlisted in the Marines; three years later, he distinguished himself when, wounded, he directed the rescue of his crew after their ship was rammed and sinking. At age 42, he became the youngest president ever elected in the United States. During his mandate, which lasted barely three years, he achieved a number of reforms, including increased allowances for unemployed and disadvantaged people, as well as signature of a minimum wage law and the extension of its application. On 22 November 1963, he was assassinated as his presidential motorcade travelled through Dallas, Texas. Wounded in the head, he died almost immediately.