New York Today: Inaugurating a New Yorker
Updated, 7:00 a.m.
Good morning on this dreary Friday.
It’s almost official.
Around noon today, Donald John Trump of Queens will be sworn in as our country’s 45th president.
The event in Washington is expected to draw as many as 900,000 people.
Those attending the festivities include past presidents, politicians (minus about a third of House Democrats), military personnel, and a sea of well-wishers, ball-goers and protesters. (And, if the new president gets his way, zero A-listers.)
But Mr. Trump is hardly the first from our city to take the oath of office.
In 1901, Theodore Roosevelt was inaugurated in Buffalo. He was called back from a vacation in the Adirondacks as President William McKinley, who had been shot, was on his deathbed.
If Roosevelt’s first inauguration was solemn, he made up for it with his second, in 1905.
The raucous Washington affair featured a gold- and glitter-streaked parade that included Rough Riders, cowboys, cadets, Harvard students and six Native American chiefs, including “the once-dreaded Geronimo.”
According to The New York Times’s account of the parade, Mr. Roosevelt made an off-color remark to a senator from Georgia. Then, with a laugh, he said, “I really shuddered slightly today as I swore to obey the Constitution!”
In 1933, another New Yorker, Franklin D. Roosevelt, uttered a recognizable, and more inspiring, inauguration phrase: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
And our city has also hosted its fair share of inaugurations.
An apartment at 123 Lexington Avenue was the stage for a hurried late-night inauguration in 1881, when Chester A. Arthur took the oath of office after James A. Garfield had been shot.
And, as with most events worth attending, in our book, presidential inaugurations began in New York:
George Washington took the very first oath of office in 1789 at Federal Hall in Lower Manhattan.
The Times will provide up-to-the-minute coverage of all of today’s inauguration events, from the ceremony to the evening balls, and the parades and protests in between. You can follow along online, on the app and on social media.
Here’s what else is happening:
Weather
TODAY IN NEW YORK, N
A gloomy day ahead.
After a semisunny morning, the skies will darken and there’s a good chance of rain.
Temperatures are in the upper 30s with the wind.
Our lunch advice: Stay inside and stream the inauguration from your desk.
(In case you’re wondering, it’s going to rain in Washington.)
Our weekend looks erratic: Saturday should be unseasonably warm, Sunday looks wet.
In the News
• Politicians and celebrities protested Donald J. Trump’s inauguration at Trump International Hotel. [New York Times]
• … Protesters were also camping out overnight at the headquarters of Goldman Sachs. [Gothamist]
• … And New Yorkers were pitching in to help the Womens’ March in Washington on Saturday. [New York Times]
• In the city’s salt marshes, climate experts have found more proof of rising seas, a looming hazard for much of the region. [New York Times]
• Delays at La Guardia Airport, caused in part by Mr. Trump’s departure, left New Yorkers wondering if his travel to Washington would routinely create headaches. [New York Times]
• The Metropolitan Transportation Authority wants to raise fares to $3. [New York Post]
• The exam for entrance to the city’s most elite high schools is being overhauled for the first time in 20 years. [NY1]
• Mr. Trump chose Woody Johnson, the owner of the New York Jets, as his ambassador to Britain. [New York Times]
• A crime fighting R2-D2-like robot is patrolling 10th Avenue. [DNAinfo]
• The case for riding a bike in the city without a helmet. [Gothamist]
• Today’s Metropolitan Diary: “A Spontaneous Sing-Off in the Shadow of Times Square”
• Scoreboard: Islanders extinguish Stars, 3-0. Rangers cut through Maple Leafs, 5-2. Wizards blast Knicks, 113-110.
• For a global look at what’s happening, see Your Friday Briefing.
Coming Up Today
• Visit one of these museums, which are free today in honor of the inauguration.
• The Winter Antiques Show begins at the Park Avenue Armory on the Upper East Side, continuing through Jan. 29. Noon. [$25, tickets here]
• Celebrate the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at a movie marathon, with films about the civil rights leader, at the West New Brighton Library on Staten Island. 2:30 p.m. [Free]
• ... Or take a belly-dancing class nearby at Mariners Harbor Library on Staten Island. 3 p.m. [Free]
• Join a silent disco or silent rave, where you’ll rock out and work out to music from wireless headphones, at West Bronx Recreation Center. 5 p.m. [Free]
• Devils host Canadiens, 7:30 p.m. (MSG+). Nets at Pelicans, 8 p.m. (YES).
The Weekend
Saturday
• Which of our neighbors hibernate during winter? Children can learn about these local animals, hear stories and do crafts at Wave Hill House in the Bronx. 10 a.m. [Free before noon]
• Celebrate Edgar Allan Poe’s birth date with performances and readings of his works near his former home, at the Poe Park Visitor Center in the Bronx. Noon. [Free]
• You can take your toddler to Baby & Me Comedy, a show at Q.E.D. in Astoria, Queens. 3 p.m. [$5]
• Join Urban Park Rangers to talk astronomy and learn about the night sky at the Wolfe’s Pond Park Comfort Station on Staten Island. 6 p.m. [Free]
• Islanders host Kings, 7 p.m. (MSG+). Devils at Flyers, 7 p.m. (MSG+2). Nets at Hornets, 7 p.m. (YES). Knicks host Suns, 7:30 p.m. (MSG).
• Watch “The New York Times Close Up,” featuring The Times’s Alexander Burns and Jonathan Mahler and other guests. Saturday at 10 p.m. and Sunday at 10 a.m. on NY1.
Sunday
• Women can take a self-defense class at the Williamsbridge Oval Recreation Center in the Bronx. 11:30 a.m. [Free]
• Take the kids to meet Thomas the Tank Engine and watch him perform at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. 11 a.m., 1:30 and 3:30 p.m. [Prices vary, tickets here]
• An evening jazz concert, featuring an Afro-Latin orchestra, at Birdland Jazz Club in Midtown Manhattan. 9 p.m. [$30, tickets here]
• Looking ahead: “Star Dust,” a ballet tribute to David Bowie with choreography to his music, opens on Tuesday at the Joyce Theater in Chelsea.
• Rangers at Red Wings, 12:30 p.m. (NBC). Islanders host Flyers, 6 p.m. (MSG+).
• For more events, see The New York Times’s Arts & Entertainment guide.
Commute
• Alternate-side parking: in effect until Jan. 28.
And Finally...
While many visitors are descending on today’s inauguration to celebrate, others are planning to protest.
Nearly 100 groups, and perhaps half a million people, are expected to demonstrate over the weekend, according to law enforcement officials.
Mr. Trump’s election has unleashed “what will probably turn out to be one of the most fertile periods of activism on the left in decades,” writes The Times’s Ginia Bellafante.
But this is hardly the first time a presidential inauguration has been met with demonstrations.
In 1913, around 8,000 suffragists marched through Washington to protest the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson, who opposed women’s right to vote.
Richard Nixon saw lawmakers formally boycott his second inauguration in 1973. Some members of Congress even joined the tens of thousands of antiwar demonstrators at the Washington Monument instead of attending his swearing-in.
The next substantial protest of a presidential inauguration didn’t occur until 2001, when, after a contentious recount battle, an estimated 20,000 demonstrators took to Pennsylvania Avenue to protest George W. Bush’s first inauguration.
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P.C: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/20/nyregion/new-york-today-inaugurating-a-new-yorker.html
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