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Ringing in, wringing out | Scene Through the Lens

Picturing a mayoralty

January 1, 2024: A large TV screen that will be their backdrop shows scenes from last year’s Mummers Parade, as the Golden Crown Fancy Brigade tests their staging at the Convention Center, preparing for the division’s two finale performances on New Year’s Day with ticketed shows, at 11:30 a.m. and 5 p.m.
January 1, 2024: A large TV screen that will be their backdrop shows scenes from last year’s Mummers Parade, as the Golden Crown Fancy Brigade tests their staging at the Convention Center, preparing for the division’s two finale performances on New Year’s Day with ticketed shows, at 11:30 a.m. and 5 p.m.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer

While the Mummers strut past it, headed down Broad Street, former Mayor Jim Kenney is leaving City Hall where he has served in elected office since his first term as an at-large member of Council in 1991.

In his victory speech after he won the Democratic primary for mayor in 2015, he said, “I want a lot of things for our children, but, most of all, I want them to grow up in a Philadelphia where we all look past our differences and join together to create a better place for all of us to live.”

In an exit interview with The Inquirer, Kenney said he hoped he’d be remembered as “someone who cared.”

Inquirer photographers were there with our cameras over his past two terms as mayor, during all of the city’s successes and failures that will define his time in Philadelphia’s top job.

We looked back and created a gallery on the eight years James F. Kenney served as the 99th mayor. Plus a few images from his days in City Council.

Since 1998, a black-and-white photo has appeared every Monday in staff photographer Tom Gralish’s “Scene Through the Lens” photo column in The Inquirer’s local news section. Here are the most recent, in color: