A bronze statue of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry is in danger of tipping over in Front Park. Bird droppings have caused serious corrosion on the monument to the U. S. naval hero.

So many people have sat in Abraham Lincoln’s lap over the decades that all the rubbing and scratching have caused wear on the statue of Young Lincoln in Delaware Park’s Rose Garden.

The statues of Presidents Grover Cleveland and Millard Fillmore outside City Hall are starting to corrode.

Fourteen of the city’s most prominent outdoor monuments and five in City Hall are in dire need of attention. The Common Council has followed the recommendation of the Buffalo Arts Commission and fast-tracked approval of a $225,420 contract for the first phase of a long-term restoration project.

Buffalo is blessed with some impressive works of public art, said Thomas Herrera-Mishler, chief executive and president of the Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy.

“But we’ve had 10 years of deferred maintenance, and this has taken a toll,” he said.

The Commodore Perry monument in Front Park is among the more urgent priorities. Perry defeated the British naval fleet at the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812.

“He’s about ready to fall over,” Herrera-Mishler warned.

Emerson Barr III, executive director of the arts commission, agreed, noting that cement is crumbling out of the interior, or the mold. Freezethaw cycles and redeposited material have lifted the statue off its ornate pink granite base.

Other works that would be restored under the proposed contract include the statue of David in Delaware Park near the Scajaquada Expressway, Lincoln the Emancipator in the rear of the Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society, the bronze statue of Gen. Daniel Davidson Bidwell on Colonial Circle and the bust of John F. Kennedy in the City Hall lobby.

The $225,240 contract would be a down payment on a multiyear mission to repair and restore Buffalo’s public art, Barr and Herrera-Mishler said. In addition to the prominent statues and monuments that grace many city neighborhoods, dozens of portraits of former mayors — some dating to the 1840s — need urgent attention, Barr said. City Hall alone, he added, contains 74 works of art, many needing restoration.

The last major restoration mission involving outside works of art was undertaken about a decade ago, city officials said.

“There’s so much that needs to be done,” Barr said. “What we’re really doing with this [contract] is triage.”

Buffalo cannot allow the region’s “shared cultural heritage” to deteriorate, said Elizabeth Pena, director of Buffalo State College’s art conservation department.

The program is one of just three comprehensive, graduate-level programs in the United States that trains students primarily in conserving objects, paper and paintings.

“For a medium-sized city, Buffalo has a lot of public art,” Pena said. “It’s penny wise and pound foolish to not take care of your art.”

The works not only enhance quality of life and beautify the city, but also help to promote Buffalo as a tourism destination for people who are interested in art and architecture, she said.

The Council has approved a contract with Russell-Marti Conservation Services, a Missouri company with experience in city restoration projects. The company will work with Jonathan Thornton, an art conservation expert at Buffalo State who also has been involved in previous restoration efforts.

Initially, some Council members said the city was being asked to approve a bid that was higher than some proposals submitted by competing companies that expressed an interest in the restoration work.

Barr said the bids had some glaring differences. Some companies, for example, use lasers to clean statues and monuments, he said.

While that has achieved good results in some regions, Barr claimed it still is considered an experimental procedure. He said the arts commission, after consulting with restoration experts, believes a “conservative” cleaning method is a more prudent approach.

“If you make a mistake with some items, you can’t just go back and redo it,” he said.