Richard Perry/The New York Times
Kalustyan's, a market at 123 Lexington Avenue, is the only building
still standing where a president was sworn in: Chester A. Arthur.
Posted on 06/30/2009 5:03:01 AM PDT by Pharmboy
Richard Perry/The New York Times
Kalustyan's, a market at 123 Lexington Avenue, is the only building
still standing where a president was sworn in: Chester A. Arthur.
Forlornly unidentified and altogether forgotten, these sites have been literally lost to history.
...on West 125th Street...nothing marks the place where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was stabbed in 1958.
Then there is the spot on Fifth Avenue where Winston Churchill, crossing against the light, was struck by a car in 1931 and nearly killed.
snip
Andrew Carroll, 39, an amateur historian, is embarking this week on a 50-state journey to uncover, memorialize and preserve these and other sites where history happened serendipitously, and which, for one reason or another, have been relegated to anonymity.
Mr. Carroll’s latest crusade (www.HereIsWhere.org) was inspired by a story he read 15 years ago about a dramatic rescue that occurred during Abraham Lincoln’s first term as president. snip
“My coat collar was vigorously seized and I was quickly pulled up and out to a secure footing on the platform,” [Todd]Lincoln recalled years later.
snip... In 1908, baseball’s greatest hit, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” was published by the composer’s company on West 28th Street and made its debut with a performance at the Amphion, an opera house on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn. No marker...
... In Baltimore, he plans to visit the site of the shop where Mary Katherine Goddard printed the first copy of the Declaration of Independence that includes all of the signatories.
... “This trip is just the kickoff,” said Mr. Carroll, who is paying for his tour with a book advance. “I’m going to be doing this for life.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Ok, ok...this is not strictly colonial history, but there is a mention of the DoI. At any rate, I thought the majority of you on the list would be interested in this guy's project. He will be traveling the country, so email him with any bit of arcane history in your respective areas.
The RevWar/Colonial History/General Washington ping list
What a fascinating idea! BTTT!
But leave it to the NYT to be wrong with the first sentence...Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in after McKinley’s assassination here in Buffalo NY. The house, run by the National Parks Service, is still standing (and resorted) very nicely!
http://travelphotobase.com/s/NYBTR.HTM
There is hardly anything in New York City to mark significant Revolutionary War sites. The libs in charge here don’t consider them very important.
Many years back, I talked to a homeowner. The old house had one of the first electric stoves and was "A Test Kitchen"...Pies was the big thing....They saved all the documentation. It was a great find...not lost....just forgotten!!
From
THE BATTLE FOR NEW YORK:
The City at the Heart of the American Revolution
by Barnet Schecter
The Battle For New York Walking Tour:
http://www.thebattlefornewyork.com/walking_tour.php
______________________________________________________________
McGOWN'S PASS - Central Park:
http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/historical_signs/hs_historical_sign.php?id=12377
In the article, when they speak of Arthur's swearing in, they say "...in the city..." meaning the only building still standing in NYC where a president was sworn in (the building in which Washingtonwas sworn in has long since been torn down and replaced on Wall and Broad Sts.). They did not carry that verbiage through to the caption and I should have noted that.
Thanks for your eagle eye...
So, next time any of you Freepers are around that spot (and Bloomindale's is only 6 blocks to the south on Third Ave) make sure to stop by and have a look.
The Guest House - or the Alexander Inn. Oppenhiemer and Einstein stayed there. My dad did do, when he was here for a track meet in high school. If I win the lottery, I'd buy it and refurbish it. Sadly though, they're letting it go downhill and fall apart.
oh yeah, chester arthur....
Ref
that curious case of potus chester arthur
http://gunnyg.wordpress.com/2009/06/10/and-then-theres-that-curious-caseof-potus-chester-arthur/
Excellent idea.
The French have a few of such plaques around Paris. Two I recall were one noting that the Nazis had a Gestapo torture house at a particular site another that a French tanker, knowing the distance (he had been taught in school) from a particular spot in the Tulliere Gardens to the Arc de Triomphe was able to zero in on an enemy tank.
Oddly I don’t recall seeing others for the more obvious
older events such as the Terror killings at the Place de Concorde. But it’s been a while so perhaps it’s my memory that’s at fault.
Ah, the great Marylanders.
They weren’t “militiamen”, which is part of why they were superior (and that MD thought they should be trained and equiped). An official government history should get it right.
>Ah, the great Marylanders.
Besides their heroic role in the Battle of Brooklyn, aka “Battle of Long Island”, they also played a significant part in helping Washington’s main army flee safely north up Manhattan after the British invaded it.
From the NYC Parks dept website...
Mcgown’s Pass
Central Park
McGown’s Pass, part of the escarpment that crosses Manhattan around 106th Street, consists of two rock outcrops located on either side of Kingsbridge Road. The Pass takes its name from a popular local tavern owned by the McGown family during the late 17th and early 18th centuries.
After his early Revolutionary War defeat at the Battle of Brooklyn (1776), General George Washington (1732-1799) moved most of his troops north of McGown’s Pass, leaving only a small contingent to the south. Hoping to trap the Continentals, on the morning of September 15, 1776, British troops landed from dozens of transport ships anchored in Kips Bay (near present-day 34th Street). Washington, headquartered at the Morris Mansion on West 160th Street and Edgecombe Avenue, charged southward through McGown’s Pass, directing his men to counter the invading force.
Rallying a small force of soldiers, Washington ordered them to march westward across Manhattan Island, then north on Bloomingdale Road into Harlem Heights. A small band of Maryland militiamen (near present-day 92nd Street and 5th Avenue) kept the British from advancing westward. As in the Battle of Brooklyn, the Marylanders held the line against superior forces, securing the American retreat. The British Army wisely built a small fortification over the pass to control the flow of troops in and out of the city. Seven years later, at the war’s successful conclusion, colonial soldiers under the command of General Henry Knox (1750-1806) marched back through the pass and down Manhattan Island to liberate the city.
During the War of 1812 (1812-1814), McGown’s Pass was a lookout point for the Americans who anticipated a British invasion. When the British bombarded Stonington, Connecticut in August 1814, the American command began to fear that the British might attack from the north, and a massive mobilization attempt by civilians contributed to the building of a chain of fortifications on the high bluffs of Upper Manhattan and Central Park. Several structures were built. Connecting all of these fortifications were four-foot high defensive walls (breastworks) made of earth, but the British never invaded.
Although the original plan for Central Park terminated at 106th Street, the northernmost section was purchased in 1863, and remnants of these earthwork fortifications remained. The designers of the park, Calvert Vaux (1824-1895) and Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903), decided to leave the structures and earthworks as they stood. In 1990, the Central Park Conservancy, while preserving the north end of the park, worked with archaeologists to identify the breastworks that had eroded over time. The remains of McGowan’s Pass stand as a reminder of the role that New York City played in the early history of the American Republic.
http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/historical_signs/hs_historical_sign.php?id=12377
Very interesting! Thanks for the tip!
OMG= not even the prison ships?
From the Battle of Brooklyn walking tour link I posted earlier in thread...
"Keep going on De Kalb, on the left-hand side, to Fort Greene Place. This is a path that will take you to Myrtle Avenue and the front of Fort Greene Park. The path leads to several flights of steps and the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument at the top. This was the site of Fort Putnam, the fourth in the chain of works. Because of this commanding position Fort Putnam was the most important in the line and the one the British tried to seize first during the battle. The Prison Ship Martyr’s Monument that occupies the site is a soaring Doric column topped by a bronze lantern and an observation deck (which is now closed to the public). It is a stunningly beautiful memorial that commemorates one of the worst atrocities in American history. An estimated 11,000 American prisoners perished on the overcrowded ships. Their bodies were buried in shallow graves along the shore and the remains were eventually gathered and placed in the crypt below the monument.
Extending the line even further east towards Wallabout Bay was another fort called simply the “redoubt on the left.” This was on today’s Cumberland Street between Willoughby and Myrtle Avenues. The five forts--Box, Greene, Oblong, Putnam and the last one on the left--were all connected by trenches, and additional ditches led to the marshes on either end of the line."
Make that "Battle For New York walking tour"
That article is why I commented that they were NOT militiamen, and that the official histories should get it right.
As to the MDers, ironically the only time they failed was their LAST major conflict in Guilford Ct House, where as with the rest of the rebels, they ended up “running”. Everywhere else they were the backbone of conflict - at least where actually engaged.
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