Here comes the next mayor
LISTEN MY CHILDREN and you shall hear of men you've never heard of before. All flawed, none evil, some almost good. Each was mayor of Philadelphia in the not so long ago, and each shaped the city we walk today, Inauguration Day, of our next mayor.
Understand that Philadelphia was a Republican city for almost 100 years, from Abraham Lincoln to Dwight Eisenhower, during which time the Republicans stole as much as they could. By the turn-of-the 20th Century Philadelphia was labeled "Corrupt and Contented" in the famous words of another Lincoln, himself labled a muckraker.
By 1950 Philadelphia had had enough. Returning World War II veterans and visionary reformers, Joe Clark and Richardson Dilworth, led the Democratic charge against the Republican dynasty, which folded like the Ottoman empire. The young turks invigorated the city with hope and possibility. Society Hill, Penn Center, "urban renewal" -- all this happened on their watches as mayor from 1952 to 1962, when Dilworth resigned in the middle of his second term to run for governor .
City Council president James Tate, a rowhouse Irishman, assumed the office and held it for ten years, during which time he defeated Republican mayoral candidate Arlen Specter, and appointed Frank Rizzo as the next mayor. I mean, police commissioner.
If I have to explain Frank Rizzo, well, fuhgeddaboudit. He was somethin'. Both huge and original. He ruled the city's image during the '70's. He would have been mayor for life if we had let him. But we didn't. Next came Bill Green, who didn't have the stomach for the job. He bailed after one term, allowing the horror. . .the horror. . .of Wilson Goode, who defeated Frank Rizzo twice on his way to becoming Philadelphia's first failed black mayor.
Wilson Goode also defeated Ed Rendell, who later became the first and much beloved New York Jewish deli mayor. Ed Rendell begat the infuriating John Street, who for all his merits, just didn't get it. And today comes a new mayor, much flawed I'm sure we'll see, but different in the best of ways.
For one thing, he actually grew up in Philadelphia, the first home born mayor in 25 years. He's seen every mayoral catastrophe unfold close enough to duck. And still he sought the job he knows can, and will, suck. He's like some sort of dungeons and dragons nerd warrior amused to find himself human. And he's got a really hot wife. Joe Clark, "Martini Dick," James H.J., Bambino, Greenie, Willie Wilson, Fast Eddie, Brother of Milton, meet the new mayor of Philadelphia. With a name like Nutter he's got to be good.
