Have you ever seen one of those clever little historical markers that says something like this?
On October 23rd, 1846 At This Location, Nothing Happened.
I could write something like that about the place we call “America’s Main Street.”
Night falls on Pennsylvania Avenue. (Carol M. Highsmith)
Not much is going on right now on Pennsylvania Avenue. Of course, a whole lot has happened there, and will again next January, when the outgoing U.S. president and the incoming one will leave the White House together, ride up the avenue to the Capitol for the swearing in of the 44th president of the United States. The 45th if you count Grover Cleveland twice. He was elected two different times, with Benjamin Harrison serving in between.
Next year about this time, the new president and his wife will keep with tradition by proceeding back up Pennsylvania Avenue to a reviewing stand to watch the remainder of the Inaugural Parade.
That president, of course, could very well be the current one, in which case Barack Obama won’t have anyone to ride with when he heads to the Capitol to be sworn in.
Pennsylvania Avenue stands out clearly in Currier and Ives' 1880 depiction of Washington. (Library of Congress)
While everything’s pretty quiet a block or two away from us at VOA’s Independence Avenue address, I thought I’d tell you a bit about the street we sometimes call the “Avenue of Presidents,” which was designed by the city’s planner, Pierre-Charles L’Enfant,[1] to be one of his featured, Paris-style arterials.
In other words, a pretty big deal.
The very first inaugural parade did not occur until the nation’s third president, Thomas Jefferson, rode his horse up to the Capitol for his second inauguration in 1805. The first two chief executives, George Washington and John Adams, had been sworn in up in New York and Philadelphia, respectively, while the new capital city was being built.
Jefferson had also been in town for his first inauguration in 1801, but it was such a humble affair that he simply walked over to the Capitol from his nearby boarding house, took the oath of office, said a few words to a crowd of dozens, and walked back home. There was no inaugural parade.
Phillip Brooks, a historian who coordinated the National Archives’ collection of papers and artifacts from several inaugurations, told me Jefferson’s second inaugural was a bit more of a public event.
He rode up to Capitol Hill with a couple of friends on horseback. He didn’t have any particular sort of escort. But there was an escort leading him back that was made up of mechanics and artisans from the Navy Yard. And they constituted the first inaugural parade, actually. It drew a good crowd for the day. There weren’t all that many people in Washington, of course. It was a brand-new city.
This is just the Center Market Building. There were stalls out front, too. (Library of Congress)
Not long afterwards, Pennsylvania Avenue became Washington’s business corridor. Presidents-to-be and other notables often stayed at the Indian Queen Hotel, which had slave quarters in the basement. People came from all over Maryland and Virginia to shop at Center Market, [2]which filled an entire block where the Archives Building stands today. The famous Civil War photographer Mathew Brady set up his portrait studio overlooking it.
But this was well after one of the most raucous inaugural parades, for Andrew Jackson in 1829. The former army general was the first president elected from what was then “the West” …but was actually just over the Appalachian Mountains. Phillip Brooks says Jackson’s rough-and-ready supporters flocked to Washington to see their hero take office.
Jackson didn’t want an inaugural parade, Brooks told me . . .
. . . because his wife had just died. So all of his supporters just followed him and his little procession back to the White House — thousands of them. And they barged right in. There had been a reception planned, with big kegs of orange juice, huge wheels of cheese. And the White House staff expected a very orderly gathering. Oh, no. Jackson’s supporters just marched right up the steps and in, muddy boots and all, climbed up on top of the sofas to see the president, generally trashed the place, broke windows to get some air.
The revelers had brought something quite a bit stronger than orange juice. Tennesseans, including Jackson, liked their whiskey. He owned several distilleries back home.
Things got so far out of hand at his inaugural melee that his aides had to rescue him, lifting the big man out a window to safety.
William Henry Harrison’s inauguration in 1841 is remembered because the new president spoke to the crowd for one hour, 35 minutes in the bitter cold. Within a month he was dead of pneumonia. That inaugural is notable, too, because it featured the first highly choreographed parade. Floats included a log cabin on wheels.
Other memorable sights in early inaugural parades included a scaled-down model of “Old Ironsides” — the frigate U.S.S. Constitution [3]— on wheels, dressed up as President Buchanan’s “ship of state” in 1857; a grandiose temporary arch built over the avenue for William Garfield’s parade in 1881; and a procession of American Indian chiefs and army “Roughriders” in Teddy Roosevelt’s inaugural parade of 1905.
Montie Montana gets his man. (Associated Press)
In 1953, a cowboy named Montie Montana, riding in the inaugural parade, guided his horse over to the presidential reviewing stand while twirling his lasso. He thrust the lariat forward and perfectly caught the right arm of President Dwight Eisenhower. The president — though not necessarily his Secret Service bodyguards — delighted in the rope trick.
Pennsylvania Avenue had changed radically by the time John F. Kennedy rode up the Avenue in 1961. On the south side, a row of neoclassical government buildings called the “Federal Triangle” — massive enough to blot out the sun on the street — had replaced a tough and tawdry neighborhood called “Murder Row.” But much of the north side had deteriorated into a jumble of liquor stores, pornographic movie houses, and seedy bookstores.
The president’s wife, Jacqueline, was appalled. She said, “Something really must be done.” And Kennedy replied, “We’ll see about that.”
A wholesale revitalization of Pennsylvania Avenue began after Mrs. Kennedy called on President Lyndon Johnson a few days after the funeral of her assassinated husband in 1963. Her one request of the new president was that he follow through on Kennedy’s plan to spruce up the once-grand boulevard.
The Carters take to the street. (Library of Congress)
There was plenty of heartburn for the president’s security force in 1977, when Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter hopped out of their limousine and proceeded to walk about half the Inaugural Parade route up the Avenue.
When they got out of the car, just east of the Archives Building, the place went wild: “He’s walking! He’s walking! He’s gonna do it!” people screamed. It set a precedent. Every new president and his wife since have taken a stroll during their inaugural parades, at least for a couple of blocks. Read the rest of this entry »
