For all his flaws, Rizzo ran a great city. It has gone straight into the toilet ever since, and even the main Center City and Downtown areas, once accessible in easy walking distance to absolutely everything, have become uninhabitable for average middle-class people.
Statue of Frank Rizzo in front of the Municipal Servies Building in the center of Philadelphia
Mural of Frank Rizzo on the side of a shop in the 9th Street Italian Market
Women in Philadelphia before the 2000s loved their three Franks: Frank Sinatra, Frankie Avalon and Frank Rizzo. One of the most popular sites for Italian-Americans, entertainment lovers, politicos and Mafiosi was the old Palumbo's nightclub and Nostalgia Room restaurant in the Italian Market. Nostalgia's walls were lined with framed, autographed b&w photographs of all the great lounge singers who had entertained at Palumbo's: Sinatra, Jimmy Durante, Patti Page, Dean Martin, Tony Bennett, Sammy Davis Jr, Rosemary Clooney, Al Martino, Connie Francis, Peggy Lee, Louis Armstrong, Louis Prima, Frankie Avalon, on and on.
Nostalgia served the best Neapolitan-Sicilian food and absolutely scrumptious Italian bread hot from Sarcone's bakery ovens several doors up 9th street. Linguini and clams, mussels, sausage and spaghetti, baked ziti, rigatoni with meatballs, scungilli, calamari, lasagne, eggplant parmesan... Throughout his political career, Frank Rizzo used to pop in for lunch or dinner, and usually walked amongst all the tables and along the bar, shaking hands with every patron of the restaurant before he departed.
In 1994, Palumbo's and Nostalgia were destroyed by arson. Just when the fire appeared to have died down, someone relit it -- three times. It was the passing of an era.
