Icons: the Strength and Fun of a Curious City

Mayor Richard J. Daley

I’ve always been fascinated by icons—seemingly ordinary people, who just by being themselves, come to symbolize the city and the times in which they live.

Like Richard J. Daley, former mayor of Chicago.  He was also the father of Mayor Richard M. Daley but don’t get the two confused.  Junior never reached his father’s heights—his father’s omnipotent grip that squeezed the Democratic party machine in Chicago during the turbulent fifties and sixties.

Daley was last of the big city bosses—the one who ordered the attack against the protestors at the Democratic Convention in ‘68 that led to the infamous trial of the Chicago Eight.  He was Chicago until he died in 1976.

 

Tony Lepore, the dancing cop of Providence

On the lighter side, there’s Tony Lepore, the dancing cop of Providence, Rhode Island.   27 years ago, Tony became bored while directing traffic and started dancing in the middle of the street.  People laughed.  And Tony laughed too.  And as they say, a legend was born. 

Now 65 and retired, the Providence mayor invites him back to the same crossroads each Christmas to do what he does best.  “He’s a Rhode Island landmark, an icon…a mini celebrity,” says Michelle Peterson of Warwick.  And he still puts on quite a show.

    

The Brown Twins

Yesterday I learned of another icon, Vivian Brown of San Francisco. The eighty-six year old woman, eight minutes older than her identical twin Marian, died last week of Alzheimer’s.  The two eccentric sisters, both wild about clothes and known as the Brown twins, walked the streets of the city for over forty years in matching outfits while greeting tourists and posing for their cameras. 

It seemed their entire life was an act to entertain others.  At five one and weighing 98 pounds, the twins graced the town with their smiles and fashion, never breaking character until Vivian became forgetful. 

 If a stranger asked where they were born, the two would break into the Glenn Miller song, “I Got a Gal in Kalamazoo.”  They both shared the honor of co-valedictorians at their high school and graduated Western Michigan University with B-plus averages.  They also claimed to have driven twin white Oldsmobiles out of a Michigan dealership.

 

But tired of the cold, the two immigrated to San Francisco in 1970.  There they worked as secretaries in separate offices and spent their earnings on the latest fashions and fads.  First notorious, they soon were loved by everyone they met. 

Before yesterday, I’d never heard of the Brown Twins but saw their pictures and kept on reading.  What a pair!  And what a set of icons for a city that lives and breathes individuality and the spirit of the soul.