Our Grand Old Lady of Locust Street has seen a lot in her 160 years, including plenty of presidential visits.
Her relationship with the White House existed before the Academy of Music was even constructed, when President Franklin Pierce attended a groundbreaking ceremony in 1855 and laid the cornerstone for the building we have today.
President Abraham Lincoln’s processional rode by the Academy on Broad Street following his assassination in 1865, with onlookers observing from the Academy Ballroom balcony.
1872 was a big year for the Academy of Music, hosting the Republican National convention for then President Ulysses S. Grant.
Through the end of the 19th century and into the 20th, she hosted a list that includes “Garfield, Hayes, Cleveland, McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Taft, Wilson, Coolidge, Hoover…Eisenhower” and Richard Nixon.
Some résumé!