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Monday, February 20, 2012

BAM Celebrates Presidents Day for 150 years

1993 BAM publication

BAM has a long history of hosting presidents and their families—150 years, to be exact. In fact, Mary Todd Lincoln was in the audience of BAM’s opening night performance in 1861. Every president from Cleveland to Truman appeared at the Academy. FDR, who spoke here 10 times, drew the largest recorded crowd in BAM history—7000, with the approximately 4800 who couldn't be seated spilling onto Lafayette Avenue. In more recent history, then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke here in 1998 for the Martin Luther King Junior celebration.

Check out our record:

Ulysses Simpson Grant  (Memorial service was held at BAM for Grant)
James Abram Garfield
Chester Alan Arthur  (Officiated at opening of Brooklyn Bridge celebration)
Grover Cleveland  (Spoke at BAM both as governor of New York State and as President)
Theodore Roosevelt
William Howard Taft
Woodrow Wilson
Warren Gamaliel Harding
Calvin Coolidge
Herbert Clark Hoover
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Harry S. Truman

The spirit of America's presidents is very much alive at BAM!

Secretary of State (and then-First Lady) Hillary Rodham Clinton with BAM President Karen Brooks Hopkins in 1998




1 comment:

  1. Incredible institution worthy of such powerful guests!

    ReplyDelete

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