Madison Square Park, known for its many charming pleasures and such fine architectural landmarks as the Flatiron Building and the world's first shake shack is also a sort of landmark to the mid-19th century Republican Party.

At its southwest entrance sits William Seward, the exalted

Secretary of State to Abraham Lincoln, who was very nearly assassinated on the same night as the

president in 1865. But he's sitting down and facing away from the park, turned away from the gentleman

who has stood near the eastern entrance

of the park since the year 1893. Roscoe Conkling, the U.S. Congressman and Republican boss

of New York City at a time when the city was at its most influential in national affairs.

Conkling would draw his last breath on his deathbed at the Hoffman House once just steps away

from where his statue now stands.

But the most interesting political statue, which has stood next to the northeast corner since

1890, is that of a man with his signature mutton shops standing next to an

armchair, a man once known as the dude or the gentleman boss.

He caroused in sleazy dance halls and oversaw one of the most corrupt institutions in the

United States, the Port of New York.

But he also played a role in one of America's first legal civil rights battles. And in the early morning of September 20th, 1881, he arose from

his armchair in his townhouse at 123 Lexington Avenue just blocks from this statue today, where he

met the frantic gaze of a reporter who declared

President James Garfield was dead. Two hours later, that resident of 123 Lexington Avenue was sworn

in as the 21st President. From a public point of view, he enters upon his duties perfectly unpleged,

wrote an editor of the Brooklyn Union. He owes his position to no man or click have been.

If only that were true, for the man he would owe the most to, he has stood facing in Madison

Square Park for over 125 years.

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