Mr. Coolidge and His Near Neighbors
Two weeks after President Calvin Coolidge's reelection in November 1924, Carson C. Hathaway wrote a New York Times Magazine article mentioning the peanuts and popcorn vendor outside the White House who Coolidge visited almost daily.
Hathaway didn't actually name the man in his article, the portion only comprising two paragraphs amid a larger piece about the greater neighborhood surrounding the White House:
The president's best neighbors are flesh and blood. Who is his nearest one? A Supreme Court justice? A distinguished senator? Guess again. A dark-complexioned popcorn man with license 543. His folks did not come over in the Mayflower. But though his blood may not be blue, his popcorn is white and crisp and fragrant.
He is as methodical as an efficiency expert. One measure of corn, two shakes of salt, one libation of golden butter: then one more scoop of corn, one shake of salt, and one crown of butter. A nickel, please! Motorists by the score line up for savory refreshments. The popcorn man is the one and only merchant allowed in the "1600" block. Here he stays, year after year. What mysterious influence has he brought to bear?
As it turned out, quite a bit.
Some quick digging reveals the man in question was Steve Vasilakes. According to the White House Historical Association, he immigrated to the U.S. from Greece in 1910, taking the Americanized name "Steve" as a shortened version of his Greek middle name Stefanos. His peanuts and popcorn cart operated right by the White House for around three decades, from the early 1910s until his 1943 death.
Coolidge used to visit the stand almost every single day, at least when he was physically in D.C., calling Vasilakes his "contact man” to the American public. Vasilakes would later become a U.S. citizen himself in 1938.
No popcorn nor peanuts cart remains by the White House today, at least not that I've ever seen. (I live only a few miles away, and swing by that area probably twice a year.)
However, when it comes to food close to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the nearby restaurant Founding Farmers at 1924 Pennsylvania once received Washington Post food critic Tom Sietsema's only zero-star review.
Mr. Coolidge and His Near Neighbors: Lafayette, Baron von Steuben, Kosciuszko and Others Keep Silent Company With President
Published: Sunday, November 16, 1924