Elmer Smith | Playing the role of a wise man
MICHAEL NUTTER waved and nodded languidly in the general direction of the revelers as he wedged his way past the crowd and into the throne room.
MICHAEL NUTTER waved and nodded languidly in the general direction of the revelers as he wedged his way past the crowd and into the throne room.
Grown men shouldered each other out of the way to get within camera range. Attendants laid large bags of gift-wrapped boxes at the hem of his flowing caftan. Children sat cross-legged on the floor staring up at him in expectation.
His features were almost obscured by his black-rimmed glasses and a loosely tied burnoose that covered his head. He introduced himself.
"I am Gaspar," he announced.
Gaspar?
Two days later, he would be called "Your Honor, Mr. Mayor" or some other honorific befitting his inauguration as the city's 98th mayor.
But on Saturday night in Fishtown, he was Gaspar, the Egyptian wise man, one of the three kings whose gifts to the Christ child are re-enacted on Jan. 5 in Spanish-speaking communities.
This particular celebration was at the home of former councilman Angel Ortiz, where neighborhood children waited for us kings (I was Melchior) to call their names and hand them a gift. If someone had told them the guy in the far-left throne was the next mayor of Philadelphia, they couldn't have cared less.
"This was a great inauguration," said Ortiz at the official ceremonies yesterday, shouting to be heard above the din at the Academy of Music.
"But it's a step down. He had a coronation at my house."
An unwitting Nutter had showed up at the party in a sweater and jeans as a guest. The coronation was a surprise.
"I didn't ask him to do that," Ortiz said at the time "My daughter Pilar asked him.
"But I can't imagine John Street doing that."
It wasn't the first time Nutter was compared favorably to a man whose shoes may be harder to fill than Street's critics or Nutter's fans seem to think. Most mayors look better coming in than going out.
Like the children at Ortiz's party, most of the revelers at that long list of celebrations yesterday are waiting for their names to be called. Nutter made sure his Cabinet was complete before he was sworn in. He intends to hit the ground running.
Still, City Hall was a game of musical chairs yesterday. People circled cautiously around the still-unfilled offices, hoping to scramble into a seat when the music stops. The mayor's reception room overflowed as Common Pleas Judge Darnell Jones swore in Nutter's Cabinet. Some onlookers had their resumes ready.
Three new Council members and several incumbents threw parties on the fourth and fifth floors of City Hall. Salsa dancers spun, bands played as staff members served up food and drink.
The mood was festive as the partying went on into the night, culminating with an inaugural ball in the Cruise Ship Terminal at the Navy Yard.
But for Nutter, the party was already over by the time he lifted his hand from the Bible that Federal Judge Ted McKee used to swear him in at the Academy of Music.
Nutter's spirited speech repeated the themes that got him elected, as he pledged to cut crime and eliminate corruption.
"To the law-abiding citizens of Philadelphia, I say that we are the majority," Nutter said, sounding more like a revivalist than a reformer. "This is our city and we are taking it back.
"Today we make change and reform real. Ladies and gentlemen, the renaissance period of Philadelphia got started a half-hour ago."
It's a full agenda even without the challenges of a city budget that confront him as the city workers wait for their gift from Gaspar in the form of new labor contracts.
A group of pickets outside the Academy of Music waved signs demanding that Nutter reverse a city decision to raise the rent on the Boy Scouts headquarters. The city solicitor has ruled that the city cannot allow them favorable rents as long as the Boy Scouts discriminate against gays.
The demonstration was under way before the inauguration began. After eight years of this, he may remember that the easiest role he ever had to play was during his inaugural weekend, as Gaspar the gift-giver.
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