Podcast Special: Visiting New York City's Presidents

By Ryan Purcell

Last summer, Joe Faykosh spent a week in New York City collecting material for a special edition of “Visiting the Presidents.” In this podcast, the Professor of History at Central Arizona College explores the childhoods, lives, loves, careers, and deaths of various presidents by visiting the sites most touched by them, from birthplaces to graves. While Faykosh traversed the five boroughs, he invited me to tag along for a short stretch near Madison Square Park. We were joined by Thomas J. Balcerski, Associate Professor of History at Occidental College.

Our starting point was Madison Square Park which contains two memorials pertinent to this preamble: a statue of Chester A. Arthur, the 21st president, stands on the corner of Madison Avenue and 26th St., while another of Vice President William H. Seward sits on a pedestal catty-corner, at Broadway and 23rd St.

The next stop was Arthur’s home, blocks away at 123 Lexington Avenue and E. 28th St. Today the site is an Indian food emporium, underneath two floors of residential space. After some discussion, we found a plaque obscured behind thick plexiglass storefront, the only indication of this historical site.

We wandered down around Gramercy Park, scoffing at the locked gates as we approached our next stop: another townhouse at 28 E. 20th St., not ten blocks from Arthur’s home, where another former president, Theodore Roosevelt, was born in 1858. Today the National Park Services maintains this site as a protected historical memorial and museum.

To hear more about our adventure, and learn more about New York City’s presidential history, click below to listen.