At 2:15 a.m. on September 20 , 1881 , Vice President Chester A. Arthur became the twenty-first president of the United States in the parlor of his New York City apartment . The unmated hour and positioning of Arthur ’s swearword in was in reaction to the death of our twentieth president , James Garfield , who passed away in a home plate on the Jersey shoring hours earlier . ( Garfield had been shot by an assassin week originally , but his death was the result of infections caused byunsanitary condition . ) So , when Judge John R. Brady administered the oath of office on the first floor of Arthur ’s abode , the after - hours meeting would mark the second presidential inauguration to take blank space in NYC , the first being General Washington at Federal Hall on Wall Street .
Eyewitnesses at Arthur ’s anomalous swearing - in were aware of its historical import , but who knew that , years after , the Manhattan brownstone would become a forget piece of American history and well known as a neck of the woods understudy for dried fruit and felafel ?
Brian Abrams
Since 1944 , the Indian market Kalustyan ’s has lodge in the first floor of 123 Lexington Ave , in between 28th and 29th Streets . It presently shares the Murray Hill neighborhood building with a existent estate companionship as well as a few residential tenant . The rout on Yelpseems to appreciatethe shop ’s immense selection of ball and spices , but any likeness of Arthur ’s parlor is kaput except for a distinct bronze memorial tablet , which attend next to the residential entrance ’s front door . “ multitude who experience there just kind of giggle when you repoint [ it out ] , ” one realtor told theNew York Timesin 2005 .
The memorial tablet , unveiled in 1981 by the now - defunct Native New Yorkers Historical Association , greet Arthur ’s sentence spent in the building before and after his presidentship ( he died at that address five age afterwards after his one condition in function ) and also that note New Yorker William Randolph Hearst have the building in 1907 . “ They had a ceremony , and they had a speech , ” said building coach Paul Green in the same New York Times clause . “ Some metropolis commissioner was there . Who can remember ? ”
On November 18 , 1986 , five years later , the Historical Association placed a plastic bouquet next to the plaque with a infinitesimal - prospicient ceremony to remember the hundredth anniversary of Arthur ’s death . The bouquet was taken forth one minute afterwards .
