George Washington was inaugurated as the first U.S. president in New York City.
The ceremony took place on April 30, 1789, at Federal Hall on Wall Street. Chancellor Robert Livingston administered the oath of office, and Washington then delivered his inaugural address to Congress.
New York City was the temporary national capital at the time. The federal government later moved to Philadelphia in 1790 and eventually to the purpose-built District of Columbia, where Washington’s successor John Adams became the first president inaugurated in the new capital.
The ceremony is sometimes associated with Philadelphia because that city hosted the Constitutional Convention and later served as the national capital. Washington, D.C., was not yet the seat of government in 1789, and the city had not developed into the capital familiar today.