LBJ motorcade, Chandler at Main Street, Worcester
Like the 1905 visit to Worcester of President Theodore Roosevelt, the 1964 stop by President Lyndon B. Johnson drew enormous crowds.
From the moment his plane touched down at Worcester Airport at 9:30 a.m. on June 10, 1964, to the moment it lifted off at 12:30 p.m., LBJ was embraced by the masses. There was a crowd of hundreds outside the airport terminal and people lined up three to four deep on sidewalks along the 6-mile route to the College of the Holy Cross, where he delivered a commencement speech to an audience of 20,000 at Fitton Field.
This week’s Then photo shows the motorcade on Chandler Street as it approaches Main Street from the west. The front car, enclosed, is carrying the president and Worcester Mayor Paul V. Mullaney.
The landscape has changed considerably since the photo was taken, with the photographer positioned on an upper floor of what is now Kirsch Liquors (then a Firestone tire store). Flowerland remains in business, having moved to West Boylston after first relocating from Chandler Street to East Mountain Street.
On the list of presidential stops in Worcester, from George Washington (1789) to Barack Obama (2014), the visits of LBJ and Roosevelt are noteworthy for the hero’s welcome given by the city.
Roosevelt was also in town for college commencement.
He delivered two: at Holy Cross and at what was then Clark College. He spent more than five hours in Worcester on June 21, 1905.
The wet weather didn’t stop the crowds, with the next day’s Telegram declaring: “Roosevelt In The Rain Cheered by Thousands As He Rides Through Streets of Worcester.”
Six decades later, the weather was warm and sunny for LBJ’s day in Worcester. Security for the visit, notably during the 12-car motorcade, was heavy, with a lineup of 1,000 city police officers, state troopers and Secret Service agents making sure everything went smoothly.
Jack Tubert, a Telegram columnist, captured the collective giddiness that overtook Worcester that day. He wrote: “For one brief moment yesterday, Worcester was Camelot, the World Fair, the center of the Universe.”
Meantime, the section of Chandler Street shown in the photo has had a range of storefront tenants over the years, notably a White Tower restaurant at the corner. Caribbean Vybe restaurant is the main tenant these days. Before the storefront building, until about 1930, the corner was home to Trinity Methodist Church. The layout of the street shifted at one point, due to widening of the roadway.