#477 Chester A. Arthur: The Gentleman Boss

On Lexington Avenue sits a special food store named Kalustyan's with a second floor stocked with international spices, syrups, and bitters. In 1881, this was the home of Chester A. Arthur, and it was here in the early morning hours of September 20, that he became the 21st President of the United States.

He is one of only two men inaugurated as president in New York City -- the other was George Washington. And Arthur was certainly no Washington!

Fans of the Netflix series Death By Lightning have already been introduced to Arthur's rugged, street-toughened personality, an efficient operator of Republican politics in a city governed by Democrats and Tammany Hall. He was quite famous, in fact, for converting Tammany men to Republican voters by using similar bare-knuckle tactics.

He eventually became the Collector of the Port of New York, one of the most lucrative jobs in American government. And then, through a strange series of events, he was catapulted onto the national ticket for president as the running mate of James Garfield.

But nobody really wanted the New Yorker for president, did they?

This is a story not only of a man out of his depth, but of the two very different individuals who helped hone his reputation -- the New York power broker Roscoe Conkling, and the Upper East Side recluse Julia Sand, who may have helped guide Arthur through the most challenging moments of his 'accidental' presidency.

PLUS: How Madison Square Park has become one of the only true monuments to his legacy.

This episode was produced and edited by Kieran Gannon.

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