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Essays | Personal
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Philadelphia. 'No one likes us; we don't care.'
Copyright Emily Brewton Schilling
Philadelphia was founded by Quakers, who believe in walking in the light wherever you may be. Sure, it’s good to dream. When I was a child, we Philadelphians were generally pissed off right out of the gate and panting for an excuse to stomp you.
In 1965 Arlo Guthrie was hassled by the police for playing the song “Ring around a Rosy” in Rittenhouse Square. Guthrie told the story onstage for decades. Not just hassled, but taken away and booked—or so the legend goes. (I asked writer Jonathan Takiff about it, and he said they weren’t actually booked. Just “briefly detained.”) Philadelphia’s hockey team was nicknamed the “Broad Street Bullies,” and you might say the same of local law enforcement’s reputation at the time. Frank Rizzo, a Philly cop since 1943, became police commissioner in 1967 and mayor in 1971. “Mr. Rizzo personally led Saturday night round-ups of homosexuals and staged a series of raids on coffee houses and cafes -- saying they were drug dens,” ran his New York Times obituary. “No indictments resulted from the raids.” During his 1975 campaign for a second term as mayor, Rizzo said, “Just wait, after November you'll have a front row seat because I'm going to make Attila the Hun look like a faggot.” Yup. On the record. He won, too.
For years, and long after Rizzo died in 1981, I and my friends—frequenters of art schools and drug dens—skittered into the shadows when we saw cops. You didn’t want to be unlucky enough to blip their radar. Things may have mellowed since I moved away in 1989. If so, gentle Philadelphians, I don’t mean you. Or the current police. I speak of the city I knew all those years ago. Please do not stomp me.
During the 1960s, beneath the carapace of old-money conservatives who owned the city, there throve a liberal bunch who rented there. The hippies of South Street, the musicians and artists, the teachers, students, poets and writers, all brought verve to the town. My parents and their friends were among them. They had a lot of parties. They protested the Vietnam War, and some traveled South to join the marches for civil rights. They chanted “We shall overcome” and “Hey, hey, LBJ: How many kids did you kill today?” They poked flowers into riot policemen’s gun barrels, but daisies don’t stop bullets. People stop bullets.
In 1965 Arlo Guthrie was hassled by the police for playing the song “Ring around a Rosy” in Rittenhouse Square. Guthrie told the story onstage for decades. Not just hassled, but taken away and booked—or so the legend goes. (I asked writer Jonathan Takiff about it, and he said they weren’t actually booked. Just “briefly detained.”) Philadelphia’s hockey team was nicknamed the “Broad Street Bullies,” and you might say the same of local law enforcement’s reputation at the time. Frank Rizzo, a Philly cop since 1943, became police commissioner in 1967 and mayor in 1971. “Mr. Rizzo personally led Saturday night round-ups of homosexuals and staged a series of raids on coffee houses and cafes -- saying they were drug dens,” ran his New York Times obituary. “No indictments resulted from the raids.” During his 1975 campaign for a second term as mayor, Rizzo said, “Just wait, after November you'll have a front row seat because I'm going to make Attila the Hun look like a faggot.” Yup. On the record. He won, too.
For years, and long after Rizzo died in 1981, I and my friends—frequenters of art schools and drug dens—skittered into the shadows when we saw cops. You didn’t want to be unlucky enough to blip their radar. Things may have mellowed since I moved away in 1989. If so, gentle Philadelphians, I don’t mean you. Or the current police. I speak of the city I knew all those years ago. Please do not stomp me.
During the 1960s, beneath the carapace of old-money conservatives who owned the city, there throve a liberal bunch who rented there. The hippies of South Street, the musicians and artists, the teachers, students, poets and writers, all brought verve to the town. My parents and their friends were among them. They had a lot of parties. They protested the Vietnam War, and some traveled South to join the marches for civil rights. They chanted “We shall overcome” and “Hey, hey, LBJ: How many kids did you kill today?” They poked flowers into riot policemen’s gun barrels, but daisies don’t stop bullets. People stop bullets.
