THIS is not a paid commercial of any kind, but it’s been a couple of years since I have been in one of my favorite joints, Millard Fillmore’s on 65th Avenue and 166th Street near Queens College. It’s a neighborhood bar/restaurant in a brick corner building with the date “1912” emblazoned at the roofline. The restaurant isn’t that old, but it looks like it was once a living space that was converted into a bar several decades ago. I have been in dozens of times and the “postgame show” for one or two Forgotten NY tours has been here.
New York State-born Millard Fillmore was the second president who wasn’t directly elected to the office on a national ticket, taking over for Zachary Taylor after the latter’s death. His views on slavery were complicated (see Comments below)
Brooklyn has two streets purportedly named for him, the Landmarked Districted Fillmore Place in Williamsburg and Fillmore Avenue ,one of the few named streets in number and letter-dominated Marine Park (though I can’t vouch if that street was specifically named for the president). Fillmore Street in Morris Park, Bronx appears alongside streets named Garfield and Taylor, so that’s a good bet for a namesake street. In his portraits, Fillmore resembles Alec Baldwin, to me at least.
Staten Island checks in with Fillmore Avenue in Willowbrook, Fillmore Place in Rosebank, and Fillmore Street in New Brighton, a neighborhood that also has a Buchanan Street.
As for Fillmore’s of Fresh Meadows, get the blackened meatloaf. That’s what I always have; I know what I like, and stick with it. I used to be able to get Killian’s Red there, but I’m not sure anymore.
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10/20/23
19 comments
Don’t forget the Fillmore theaters run by Bill Graham and the related booking agency, the Millard.
History has been unkind to Millard Fillmore because he signed the Fugitive Slave Act, which required free states to return escaped slaves to their owners. Fillmore personally hated slavery, but felt himself duty-bound to sign the act because Congress had painstakingly worked it out as a way of keeping the country from splitting apart.
I remember it at Vinny’s Hillcrest, although everyone called it Marie’s, his wife. had a great lunch, was very popular with the blue collar crowd, along with their regular neighborhood crowd. And i was told after it was named Millard Fillmores, along with i assume new owners, they also took over a bar on Vleigh Place in Kew garden Hills and renamed it Zachary Taylors. Unfortunately a few years ago a massive fire leveled the entire block
There also had been a watering hole named “Zachary Taylor’s,” I believe– I’m wondering if “Millard Fillmore’s” is a sequel, or just a competitor with a sense of humor? (And he does look like Alec Baldwin.)
It was the same owner for both!
Besides Millard Fillmore, only John Tyler, Andrew Johnson, Chester Arthur, and Gerald Ford were originally VPs who ascended to the White House upon their predecessor’s death, and were never elected President on their own. Fillmore did run again in 1856, as the third party candidate of the American, or Know Nothing Party. Its platform was anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant and Fillmore lost badly, carrying only Maryland. Ford, of course, did run as the Republican candidate in 1976 but also lost. He is also unique because he was not even elected as Vice President but was appointed in 1973 under the provision of the 25th amendment when Spiro Agnew resigned in disgrace.
Fillmore spent most of his life in Buffalo, New York, where he died in 1874; a major hospital in that area is named for him.
Wikipedia article with much more detail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millard_Fillmore
Ford is the only never-elected President, as he was never elected Vice President; he replaced Spiro Agnew when he was indicted and then resigned, and then ascended when Nixon then resigned in ’74.
Lafayette Foster of Connecticut could have been on that list. Vice President Andrew Johnson was a target in the Lincoln assassination conspiracy and had he fell victim Foster, the president pro tem of the Senate, would have been next in line for the presidency under the rules at the time. As it turned out, John Wilkes Booth entrusted the Andrew Johnson assassination to George Atzerodt, a hopeless drunk, and Foster never got his chance to be president.
Surely Ford was elected as a Congressman from Michigan? And, um, Nixon didn’t die, he just resigned after shooting himself in the foot. GHW Bush also ascended to the Presidency after being VP, but he was elected.
I realize everyone wants to split hairs, but I mean, of course, elected on a national ticket for President.
Grew up a block away at 167-15 65th Ave from 1955 thru 1973.
Had my first. 25cent Reingold draft beer there when I was 15.
Went by this past summer and would have gone in if it was open.
Don’t remember the dining room.
We used to play softball against them, frequently on Sunday mornings at the Vleigh Place fields. Great memories
I just got a Fillmore dollar coin in change when I paid for a Metro North ticket at the machine at Ludlow in Yonkers. To my knowledge, the only place you can get dollar coins is at Metro North ticket machines as change. I love these coins and the state quarters and the things on quarters that succeeded them after 2010. Coin collecting is an easy and fun hobby, and it is a shame that it might be wiped out soon with cashless transactions.
I grew up down the street from what is today Millard Fillmore’s. Since at least the mid-forties, the first floor of the building has continuously been used as a bar & grill. The building just across the street had been a bakery, which was converted into a home in the late forties or early fifties.
Millard Fillmore’s was one of our crowd’s hang-outs back in the 1970’s. By the looks of the photo you used, things have been “cleaned-up” a bit since then.
Doesn’t Lyndon B Johnson belong on the list of VP’s that became presidents upon the death of a president?
You are correct that LBJ was a VP who became President on the death (or resignation) of his predecessor, but LBJ was also elected to a term on his own. The others that were listed (Tyler, Andrew Johnson, Arthur and Ford) were never elected to the Presidency on they own. There were several others, who, like LBJ inherited the office, but also were elected for a subsequent term.
Besides Johnson, there were three other such VPs who ascended to the Presidency upon the death of the President who was their running mate, and then was elected on their own in the next general election. They are Theordore Roosevelt (ascended to Presidency in 1901; elected on his own in 1904); Calvin Coolidge (1923 and 1924); Harry Truman (1945 and 1948).
Grew up less than a block away. In college, when I’d have several classmates over working on lab reports or some such, right around 1 am we’d start thinking we needed some coffee.
So we’d walk over to Fillmore’s and get their Fillmore’s Coffee, which was a variant on an Irish Coffee. My bedroom was in the basement, and every so often there’d be a knocking on my window letting me know my friends were around, and I should join them at Fillmore’s. Left the area in the early ’90s, good to see they’re still around.