Historic Philadelphia

Veterans’ groups pushed for a name honoring
their comrades, with gentle implications that
the patriotism of those opposed might be
suspect. On March 12, 1970, city council
voted for the name Philadelphia Veterans
Stadium. Before the gates were opened,
citizens were calling the place The Vet.
THE
BICENTENNIAL
Former Police Commissioner Frank L.
Rizzo won his first of two terms as mayor in
1971. His tenure was as stormy as his police
career. He promised to hold down taxes, but
after his reelection in ’75, he pushed through
the largest tax increase in city history to cover
a huge budget deficit not mentioned before.
There followed a duel of petitions, as Rizzo’s
enemies ran an unsuccessful recall campaign,
and then his supporters unsuccessfully sought
a City Charter change that would allow Rizzo
to run for a third term.
In 1970, Walter Annenberg, then serving
as U. S. ambassador to the United Kingdom,
sold the Inquirer and Daily News to John S.
Knight, the same publisher who had bought
Annenberg’s father’s Miami paper thirty-three
years before.
Philadelphia had a Centennial Exhibition
and a Sesqui-Centennial Exposition, so it
seemed logical to expect there to be a
Bicentennial something-or-other in town in
1976. Way back in 1957, Mayor Dilworth
asked the Junior Chamber of Commerce to
develop a plan for 1976. There followed years
of a steady rise and fall of Philadelphia
committees, commissions, and corporations
introducing a succession of plans that fizzled
for one reason or another. Proposals for an
exposition at various locations collapsed, one
by one. Finally, an organization called
Philadelphia ’76 put together a series of
events, officially sanctioned many activities
that would have happened anyway, and came
up with a list of sixteen hundred official
Bicentennial functions.
The professional baseball, basketball, and
ice hockey all star games were in Philly, not to
mention championship badminton, and
canoeing. The Mummers formally admitted
they were a cultural phenomenon and opened
the Mummers Museum at Second Street and
Washington Avenue. The LaScala Opera
visited from Italy and the Royal Ballet from
England. Ten heads of state stopped by,
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