A Prayer for the City (68 page)

In writing about the events of City Hall, I based almost 90 percent of this book on personal observation. In instances where I was not present, I relied in most cases on reconstructions provided either by the mayor himself or David Cohen. Because of the nature of the research, I spent thousands of hours with each of them over the course of four years. I was also given permission to view thousands of pages of documents, many of them confidential.

I had dozens of encounters with Michael McGovern, Jim Mangan, Fifi Mazzccua, and Linda Morrison in researching and writing about each of them.

Because so much of the book is based on firsthand accounts, interviews for the purposes of reconstruction were not necessary in many instances. During the course of research, however, lengthy interviews were conducted with the following individuals: Ted Beitchman, Anthony Buchanico, Mark Carter, Larry Ceisler, Richard Chlan, Rhonda Cohen, Jack Collins, Alan Davis, Father Edward Deliman, Michael DiBerardinis, Posquale Dudley, Isadore Epstein, Dwight Evans, Kevin Feeley, Terry Gillen, Gaynell Gillespie, Mayor W. Wilson Goode, William Hankowsky, Peter Hearn, Ronald Henry, Rev. Clarence Hester, Robin Hynicka, Ken Jarin, Barbara Kaplan, Sam Katz, Ian Keith, Bill Keller, Alan Kessler, Hank Klibanoff, Carol Koren, Bennett Levin, Ted McKee, Mary Pat McGovern, Daniel McElhatton, Arthur Makadon, Tony Mazzccua, Peter Moor, Jon Morrison, Neil Oxman, Samira Pitts, Bill Reil, Kathy Reilly, Midge Rendell, Nellie Reynolds, Governor Tom Ridge, Phil Rowan, Len Rubin, Sarah Rubin, Jonathan Saidel, Robin Schatz, Michael Smerconish, Joseph Torsella, Fred Voigt, F. John White, and Ed Zubrow.

In the course of my research, I read numerous books on cities in general and Philadelphia in particular. There were several that were particularly helpful:
The Philadelphia Negro
by W.E.B. Du Bois;
A Nation of Cities
by Mark I. Gelfand;
Crabgrass Frontier
by Kenneth T. Jackson;
American Apartheid
by Douglas S. Massey and Nancy A. Denton;
The Private City
by Sam
Bass Warner, Jr.; and
The Declining Significance of Race
by William Julius Wilson.

I accompanied the mayor from Philadelphia to Washington on June 3, 1992, when he testified before the Senate Finance Committee, and was with him both before and after his testimony. The quote about how “everything that goes on is a power struggle between black politicians and white politicians” was said in my presence on June 5, 1992, in a telephone conversation with a member of the governor’s office.

I was personally present at both Lankenau and Hahnemann University hospitals the night of November 16, 1993, when the mayor responded to the shootings of three police officers in different parts of the city. Information about the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ emergency meeting on violent crime on November 15, 1993, came largely from a memo about the meeting that was sent to the mayor by a participant.

Information on the shootings of police officers Robert Hayes and John Marynowitz on June 16, 1993, was compiled from interviews with Mayor Rendell, David Cohen, and Anthony Buchanico as well as from accounts of the incident in
The Philadelphia Inquirer
and
Philadelphia Daily News.
The speech the mayor gave to the Red Cross the morning after the shootings was viewed on tape.

The account of David Cohen on January 5, 1992, the day before the inauguration, came from personal observation. Background on Cohen as a law student and young lawyer came from interviews with Cohen, Rhonda Cohen, Arthur Makadon, and others who knew him during this period. Background on Rendell came from interviews with the mayor and Midge Rendell. I also drew on an excellent profile of him, “Acting on Impulse” by Marc Duvoisin, that appeared in the
Inquirer Magazine
on January 12, 1992. Rendell’s description of the reaction to his speech before the Democratic National Convention when he was the city’s district attorney was related in an interview on July 10, 1992. The account of Rendell after his loss in the 1987 Democratic mayoral primary came from interviews with the mayor, Alan Kessler, Arthur Makadon, Neil Oxman, and Midge Rendell, as well as personal observation, since I was a reporter at the time for the
Inquirer.

The account of Rendell’s campaigning for mayor in 1991 was based on personal observation. The account of the
Inquirer
delving into Rendell’s personal life for possible acts of sexual harrassment was based on a telephone interview
with Cohen on December 11, 1991. All the details concerning the mayor’s inauguration on January 6, 1992, were based on personal observation. The memo from Neil Oxman at the end of the chapter was personally viewed.

The account of the night at the beginning of 1992 when the city discovered it had a budget deficit of $1.246 billion came from interviews with David Cohen and F. John White. The account of the night of February 19, 1992, when the five-year plan was finished, came from personal observation, as did the entire account of the following day when Rendell met with labor leaders and gave his televised speech about the budget.

I was personally present at dozens of private meetings in which the city’s budget was discussed. Other information about the budget and the city’s financial and social conditions came from the
City of Philadelphia: Five-Year Financial Plan
and numerous stories that appeared in the
Inquirer
and
Daily News.
A particularly good account of the city’s dire financial straits was written by
Inquirer
reporter Matthew Purdy for the 1994 regional almanac that was published by the newspaper. The list of firsts for the city was based on information that appeared in
Philadelphia Architecture: A Guide to the City.

Statistics about the state of the cities from the 1950s to the present came most heavily from A Nation of Cities by Mark I. Gelfand,
Cities Without Suburbs
by David Rusk, and a reprint of the testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Reorganization and International Organizations on July 24, 1959. That is where Professor Raymond Vernon of Harvard uttered his memorable quote about cities, but he wasn’t the only one to issue dire warnings. At least a dozen public officials issued similar pleas for help. The testimony in general provided shocking proof of how deeply entrenched the problems of America’s cities were forty years ago and how little corrective action was taken. The testimony also shows that the concept of regionalism, which some academics and public officials embrace as a novel concept, is hardly new at all.

The events of April 1, 1992, when the mayor debated whether to appear with Mickey Mouse, were all personally observed. So were the events of the next day.

Much of the historical information about the yard came from the library of the Maritime Museum (it is now called the Independence Seaport Museum). The library contained rare documents about the yard and transcribed interviews with workers who were once employed there. The library’s interview with Pat
D’Amico was the basis for the material that was used about her in this chapter. Other sources of information about the yard included the yard’s own files as well as clippings in the
Inquirer
and
Daily News.
The mayor’s comments about the futility of the suit that was filed to block closure were made in my presence on several occasions during 1992 and 1993.

Information about Sovereign Oil came from private memos, clippings in the
Inquirer
, and personal observation of events that took place on May 14 and 16, 1992. The account of the visit by a delegation of Japanese officials to Philadelphia came from the book
Diary of the Japanese Visit to Philadelphia in 1872
by Henry B. Ashmead.

The account of the twenty-four-hour period on July 19, 1992, in which Robbie Burns was killed and the neighborhood reaction, came from press accounts in the
Inquirer
and
Daily News
as well as confidential memos from the police department. I was present when the mayor called the cardinal by phone on July 20, 1992. I rode with the mayor that night to the gymnasium in Kensington and personally observed all the events described in the chapter. The history of Kensington came from a variety of written sources, the two best of which were
Whitetown, U.S.A.
by Peter Binzen and
Voices of Kensington
by Jean Seder. The mayor’s comment about Passover was made in my presence on April 6, 1993.

I was present at the private meeting on July 21, 1992, in which Latino leaders claimed they were being treated unfairly. I was also present at the private meeting between the mayor and black ministers on July 22, 1992, that resulted in the walkout. I was present on December 14, 1992, when the publisher of the
Philadelphia Gay News
asked the mayor about underrepresentation of lesbians in the administration. I was present on August 21, 1992, when Italian-American leaders threatened to march in protest unless the head of the city’s art commission was fired. I was also present on January 15, 1993, when State Senator Hardy Williams claimed a conspiracy in the failure of a police officer to get a promotion. Information on the police department’s internal review of the officer’s record was supplied eleven days later by the mayor.

The account of the trial of
Commonwealth v. William Taylor
came from personal observation of the trial on August 20 and 21, 1992, interviews with Michael McGovern, court and police records, and press accounts. I was present on August 21, 1992, when the mayor held the press conference announcing that the Miss International U.S. Beauty Pageant had been salvaged.

David Cohen’s “vacation memorandum,” written in August 1992, was personally viewed. I was present on March 20, 1992, when Cohen decided who should get tickets to the NCAA basketball playoffs in Philadelphia. The account of the city councilperson asking Cohen to do something about the homeless people beneath his window was related to me by Cohen on April 7, 1992. I was present on June 17, 1992, when Cohen assured a city councilperson over the phone that a friend would be getting legal work. I was present on June 16, 1992, when he called the police commissioner about a stolen car that belonged to a friend of the mayor’s. The memo from Cohen about bathroom locations in City Hall, written on October 27, 1993, was personally viewed.

The account of the union negotiations in general during the spring and summer of 1992 was based on being present at dozens of private meetings held by the mayor, Cohen, and various members of the city’s negotiating team. Hundreds of pages of confidential documents describing in detail the city’s strategy were also given to me. During the negotiations in the spring and summer of 1992, I attempted to gain insight into the strategy of the unions, in particular District Council 33, but efforts to interview union head James Sutton and lawyer Deborah Willig were rebuffed.

The contents of the “strike contingency plans” notebook were personally viewed. The account of negotiations with the unions during the middle of June 1992 in which Thomas Paine Cronin screamed at city negotiators came from interviews with several of the latter. I was present at the meeting on May 30, 1992, when city negotiators discussed strategy, including the leak of the “Crazy Work Rules” memo. The memo was subsequently supplied to me. I was also present on June 25, 1992, at the meeting in the mayor’s home when strategy was further discussed, including the injection of race by playing one union off against the other, the use of layoff notices, and the possible contracting out of sanitation. The unions’ rally on June 29, 1992, was personally observed, as was the mayor’s reaction to it.

The account of the mayor at one point promising wage increases of 4 and 6 percent to the unions during the Democratic National Convention in July 1992, as well as the mayor and David Cohen meeting privately with national union head Gerald McEntee, came from an extensive two-hour interview with chief city negotiator Alan Davis. The interview took place on October 13, 1992, a week after the dispute was settled, when events were still fresh in his mind. Davis brought up the mayor’s crisis of faith on his own initiative. Notes of the meeting with McEntee, which took place on July 28, 1992, were supplied
by Cohen. The account of the conversation between Willig and Davis at the end of July 1992 was based on the interview with Davis. I was present at the meeting on August 6, 1992, between Rendell and national union leaders. The mayor’s comment about being pregnant all the time if he were a woman was made in my presence on September 21, 1993.

I was in the mayor’s car when he traveled to the viewing for slain officer Charles Knox on September 3, 1992. I was present on September 16, 1992, when David Cohen told the mayor that the state supreme court had ruled in favor of the city on the issue of fact-finding. The account of the city’s decision to file an appeal with the state supreme court came from being present at numerous discussions. The account of a black politician circulating a letter with the implied threat of violence was based on an interview with Cohen.

The interior of John Street’s office was personally observed on several occasions. The account of a city official receiving a call from Street’s office about a parking space was based on a memo that was written on February 11, 1992, and personally viewed. Cohen’s response was in his own handwriting at the bottom of the memo. The account of Street’s request for tickets to a sporting event was based on a phone call that the mayor made to an official of the Philadelphia Phillies on December 15, 1992. The account of Street’s meeting with editors of the
Daily News
was given to me by a participant. The memo from
Daily News
editor Richard Aregood, describing Street’s behavior, was written on July 1, 1992, and personally viewed.