J.O. Downey; served city on air, in politics, at pub

Jack Downey knew how to entertain an audience.

One spring evening in 1977, District Attorney F. Emmett Fitzpatrick was holding court, more or less, at the year-old Downey's Drinking House & Eating Saloon, on the northwest corner of Front and South Streets.

Then, so reported a columnist, Frank Sinatra walked in with a party of 10, fresh from his show at the Latin Casino in Cherry Hill.

It was Mr. Downey who caught Sinatra's ear, recalling the days when Sinatra started out as a solo and needed the airplay that radio DJs like Mr. Downey provided.

When he left, Sinatra gave a waitress a $20 tip for getting him a pack of Camels. The columnist didn't speculate whether the tip was a subconscious thanks to Mr. Downey.

On Tuesday, John O. Downey, 86, died of a heart attack and renal failure at Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where he lived.

Mr. Downey was vice president and general manager of WCAU radio - now WPHT-AM (1210) - from June 1962 until he resigned in December 1974.

In June 1975, Mayor Frank L. Rizzo named Mr. Downey a deputy city managing director. That was the decade when Rizzo sprinkled City Hall with former media types.

But working at City Hall didn't spare Mr. Downey the wrath of residents of Queen Village, who argued that a liquor license for his planned restaurant would add to parking problems there.

Around St. Patrick's Day in 1976, Mr. Downey began his third career - besides broadcasting and City Hall - by opening the restaurant (with a liquor license), which a reviewer said served "the best Irish coffee in Philadelphia."

The bar's bar was once the counter of a Dublin bank, old front pages of newspapers covered the walls, and artwork graced the ceiling - perhaps, the reviewer wrote, for any who might end the evening flat on the floor.

Earlier in 1976, Mr. Downey had become a deputy to Albert V. Gaudiosi, who was both city representative and director of commerce.

Mr. Downey was also a board member of Philadelphia '76, the planner of the Bicentennial celebration of the Declaration of Independence. Before the year was out, he resigned from both jobs to focus on his restaurant.

Staying at City Hall might have been safer.

In 1979, on the morning after a successful St. Patrick's Day, Mr. Downey was counting receipts in his apartment above the restaurant when three men attacked him and escaped with $8,000 in cash and $2,000 in checks.

Beaten with a crowbar, he suffered a fractured forehead and facial cuts.

The attackers pleaded guilty on the day that Mr. Downey married his third wife, Meg Kelly, his former pastry chef. His first wife, Phyllis, had died in a plane crash near Lewistown, Pa., in 1968.

Sinatra wasn't the only celebrity to visit Downey's.

In 1980, a columnist reported that bandleader Harry James recently had walked in with singers Dennis Day and Fran Warren.

Mr. Downey reminded James that, by winning a Hartford, Conn., magazine contest in 1948, he had earned a two-week singing engagement with the James band in Manhattan.

(Mr. Downey was a nephew of Morton Downey, voted radio singer of the year in 1932, and was a cousin of TV host Morton Downey Jr.)

"You did the right thing, opening your own nightspot," James was reported to have told him. "You never have to worry about getting fired."

Jack Downey won a few awards, too. In July 1969, the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce named him man of the month. In 1972, the Philadelphia Press Association gave him its annual honor for best radio editorial.

And in 1966-67, he was the fifth president of the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia. That organization's Web site states that early in his career, Mr. Downey was a dance-band singer, a TV director in New York City, and a program director at WCAU-TV (Channel 10).

At 82 in 2003, Mr. Downey decided to sell the place where he had lived out long nights and happy memories.

Mr. Downey's daughter Denise Longbine said he was also survived by another daughter, Kathleen; former wives Diane Mothershead and Kelly; two nephews; and five nieces.

A September memorial event is planned for family and friends; no date or place has been set.