Lexington’s controversial Confederate statues are being taken down tonight.

Kenny Bishop, the Mayor’s Deputy Communications Director, said the statues will be moved to storage and will be relocated in the Lexington Cemetery at a later date.

Bishop said the city made the decision to remove the statues this morning as “quickly as possible for probably a lot of the obvious reasons,” after the mayor received Attorney General Andy Beshear’s decision that the statues could be moved.

At 9:25 p.m., the statue of John C. Breckinridge was removed. Shortly after, the pedestal that bore his name was removed from the 5/3 Bank Pavilion.

As of 10:35 p.m., Main Street is closed from Martin Luther King Boulevard down to 5/3 Bank Pavilion. Upper Street and Main is also closed. 

The John Hunt Morgan statue is currently in the process of being removed.