First let me introduce you to Martha Schober, who immediately began working on the issue in January 1965. Without her we would never have begun and become known.
Martha was born and raised in Shreveport, Louisiana. She married a young doctor in that same town, and his career path eventually took them to Philadelphia, where he joined the staff of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. They first lived in Chestnut Hill, where I met Martha as a fellow poll-watcher on election days. They and their two teenage daughters then moved into one of the Pei houses in Society Hill shortly before Libby and I moved to the neighborhood. She had been taking a course in city planning at the university when the Bacon plan was becoming known. She was horrified. She met with one of her professors and posed the question “Does not this plan violate all the principles you have been teaching us?” He said that it did. She asked what to do about it. He told her to try to stop it. Since she was taking the course more as an intellectual exercise than as a part of a career path, she resigned from the course and went to work against the Bacon plan, basing her arguments on what she had learned from the course.
What she brought to the table was an extraordinary mind perfectly linked to an extraordinary personality. She played a key role in articulating our argument. What made her so much more effective than all of the rest of us was how she conducted herself when she and I or others from our committee went to call upon an important person in government or the private sector. She was the exact opposite of John F. Kennedy’s famous description of Washington, DC: “A city with northern charm and southern efficiency.” She came into each meeting dressed as a stylish lady of great taste and bearing a warm smile, without in any way overdoing it. Then out of her mouth came words of both exquisite Louisiana charm and hardboiled intelligence. The combination was effective. Most of the powerful people we called upon were men, and they simply could not say no to her. She was our secret weapon. As I write these words I am again overcome with sadness; she died of cancer in 1971.
Here is the account she gave to me about the beginnings of the fight:
My part in the Delaware Expressway controversy really began in the classrooms of the graduate school of City Planning University of Pennsylvania. I was a part-time student with only a few courses under my belt, but my learning experience there had alerted me to the important planning issues of our day -- an important one being the city vs. the highway.
Ironically when the Delaware Expressway model was exhibited the first time in Wanamaker's, I was so busy with my course work that I missed seeing it. I do recall seeing a few newspaper articles in which people were mentioned as dissatisfied with the design, but I was too busy to respond. One such person who seemed the most vocal was one of the developers of Head House Square, Urban Moss, and his architect Frank Weise. I had never met Weise but he was known to me by reputation and because we had mutual friends.
When the local civic group sent notices out that the model was to be exhibited and discussed on the night of December 1, 1964, at the Penn Mutual building I made a special point of going in spite of the pressure of school exams and term papers. Seeing the model, I immediately realized the impact this enormous structure would have on the historic area plus the senseless closing off of the city's waterfront. I questioned Mr. Van Eerden both before the meeting and during the meeting. I suppose this was why I asked to be on the civic association's Expressway Committee formed following this meeting. My husband and I knew few people in the area and had not yet made any effort to be part of the community life, so I was very surprised when Mr. Zambelli called me the next night to be on his committee.
One of the few persons in the area I knew was also named to the HORA committee: Duncan Buell, an architect working with Louis Kahn. The weeks passed, and our committee was never convened. This seemed strange because the chairman, Mr. Zambelli, had said when he asked me to be on his committee that we would meet immediately and act aggressively. When I reminded him of this he said he had talked to Mr. Rafsky of OPDC and was told there was nothing for the committee to do that he (Rafsky) was in touch with Sen. Clark's office and for us not to rock the boat. This was most frustrating and irritating to me.
Since I knew that both Mr. Rafsky and Sen. Clark had been in on the planning of this highway, I could not see them as being able to get the design changed to any appreciable extent, especially without strong broad-based citizen protest groups. I called Duncan Buell and his wife Sally Lou and told them of my fears and frustrations. I had already decided in my own mind that the highway should be tunneled in this area, but not being an architect, I did not mention this to them.
I found they shared my dislike of the present design and they suggested I talk with Urban Moss who was also opposed to the elevated structure.
Duncan also mentioned that an architect's group was studying this problem and he would let me know what they came up with. I called Mr. Moss and he reinforced my own judgment that the residents had ineffective leadership; that strong citizen action should be taken immediately; that I should go see Frank Weise, head of the architect's group that Duncan had mentioned. He also advised me that this architects group had come up with an underground solution.
In the meantime, someone had alerted Inquirer reporter, C. Allen Keith, who subsequently wrote news stories that were helpful to our purpose. He was to become an important advisor.
This was the beginning of our many, many private conversations. Urban felt that he would have to remain in the background as he was a Society Hill developer, but that we would have the support of Jason Nathan, who was at that time regional director of Urban Renewal for Region II which included Pennsylvania. Mr. Nathan was horrified with the highway design and felt that it would jeopardize the federal urban renewal investment in area, but that he could not openly fight it. However, he was to be extremely helpful and effective in his backstage efforts in Washington and Philadelphia. I feel he played a key part in this early on. …
The next important steps were meeting with Frank Weise to see his plans and meeting with Mrs. Cuthbert H. Latta, wife of a prominent attorney. I was led to her by Urban Moss. She was the only resident, out of many I called, who immediately agreed with my views and offer to help me. The president of HORA, William J. Eiman, refused to even talk to me. Deborah Latta and I met daily, planned our strategy and worked by phone for hours each day.
We now had going for us: an alternate proposal designed by architects; a member of the press, Allen Keith; a government official, Jay Nathan; and Urban Moss, who had friends and information sources throughout the city government. Deborah and I now tried to form a formal group that we hoped would be citywide and have as members prominent citizens of Philadelphia and the suburbs. She was from a socially prominent family and because of her husband's equal prominence was able to reach many people that I could not. Another prominent resident, Mrs. Henry Watts, became an ally and was most helpful in putting me in touch with powerful citizens such as Mr. Harry Batten and others. I could not enlist the aid of Mr. & Mrs. Jared Ingersoll because they were out of the country during the entire early period.
I had tried many times to talk with Mr. Rafsky personally but was always put off by his assistant, Theodore Newbold. I had been told by Frank Weise that that Rafsky had seen his plans for the underground proposal and was supposed to present this alternate proposal in the first meeting in Washington called by Sen. Clark. But I was told by Congressman Byrne's administrative assistant, who was at the meeting, that this alternate plan was not mentioned. I wanted very much to ask Rafsky about this and let him know what we planned to do, but he never returned my calls. So, I called a friend in Sen. Clark's Washington office. The information I received from him was very important because it identified the enemy -- not Washington at this time as Mr. Newbold had reported, but Harrisburg. Ultimately a change in design would have to come from Secretary of Highways Henry D. Harral.
Our efforts began in earnest to get people throughout the metropolitan area to write the Governor and Secretary of Highways Harral. By this time I had paid little attention to the local residents for they were still in their bitter merger battle, while my only interest was in the Expressway. Our spies told us that we had no time to lose. I cannot remember the name we chose for our organization, but we did receive our first formal publicity in the Chestnut Hill Local newspaper, which was by design because we did not want our organization to be identified with Society Hill. I, having formerly lived in Chestnut Hill and having friends there, enlisted their aid while Deborah Latta was from the Main Line and was getting support in that area.
We knew Allen Keith would publicize us in the Inquirer as soon as we could legitimately be a news item, but how to become newsworthy was the next problem. In one of my hundreds and hundreds of telephone calls, I spoke with a former neighbor in Chestnut Hill, Connie Dallas, who had been a councilwoman in the Clark reform government. I told the whole story to her and she said that I should go to the Citizens Council on City Planning (CCCP) and ask for their support. I immediately called and spoke with one of their staff, a bright young woman who responded with interest in my story. She said she would call me back with some news in a few days.
Deborah Latta and I at some point invited the president of City Council Paul D'Ortona to her home along with our architect Frank Weise and Peter Zambelli to discuss the problem and show him Frank's plans for the alternate proposal. Mr. D'Ortona never played a key role but he was very friendly at this meeting and was later to be on our side. We invited Zambelli to show him we were not bitter or hostile to the civic association in spite of their hostility to our efforts.
Finally, the Society Hill residents resolved their merger fight at a meeting on February 17, 1965. That night Zambelli was asked to make a report. He reported the visit of Mr. D'Ortona to the area as though he had invited him. This I resented, because Deborah Latta and I had done this, not Zambelli, and because I wanted the members to realize that their own leaders actually done nothing -- that time was running out for them. I got the floor and said that Mrs. Latta and I had formed an independent committee and we had been the ones that invited Mr. D'Ortona down because their own Expressway committee had never met and had done nothing in any real sense except talk to Mr. Rafsky. I said that Rafsky and Sen. Clark in my opinion could not put the expressway underground without tremendous public support, even if this was their aim.
When I sat down I had no way of knowing if anyone has listened to me or even cared about what I had said. But apparently one person did -- a prominent lawyer, John Bracken. (Bracken was a highly respected attorney at the firm of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius. He and his wife Elizabeth had restored the 1765 John Drinker House at 241 Pine Street.) He realized the importance of a broad-based citizens' attack on the present design and was delighted to find out about the architects’ committee and its alternate proposal. He contacted Deborah Latta and then me, whom he did not know. He said that he would find out whether the now-unified civic association was ready to stand behind our fight.
I understand that he had called a meeting of some of the newly elected civic association board members (including Stanhope Browne). He reported to me that they were ready to fight all the way. I told him of my call to CCCP and that they had just invited me to make a presentation before their transportation committee in two days and that I planned to ask Frank Weise to go with me to present his plans. We made a joint presentation and the Transportation Committee endorsed our underground proposal unanimously at the meeting. We left the meeting elated, feeling a major milestone had been passed.
Another thing was extremely important in getting our new effort off the ground. We knew we now had to do something to dramatize the fight as a Philadelphia issue to get publicity and wide support outside of the area. A public meeting was planned for March 3 at which new chairman Stan Browne and Frank Weise would present our alternative proposal publicly. But we were not sure who would come besides a few business leaders and Society Hill residents -- the latter we did not even want because of our desire to move the fight away from being pictured as just a local Society Hill issue. (This notion was to be very difficult to dispel and the news media plagued us with it almost to the very end.)
Mr. Bracken suggested that I ask CCCP to lend us their mailing list, consisting of most of the civic associations throughout the city plus cultural and other leading nonprofit organizations. I called the young lady to whom I had spoken first, and she invited me to come to the office. When she readily agreed to let us use their mailing list, I was emboldened to ask if we could send the invitations on their stationery. She agreed to this without consulting anyone and together we wrote out an inflammatory anti-City Planning Commission invitation urging all CCCP members to attend. This assured us a good turnout at our meeting. Furthermore, the CCCP office staff ran the invitations off on their machines and mailed them for me the same day. Five days later, on March 3, 1965, the Committee to Preserve Philadelphia's Historic Gateway was publicly born. The name was not decided upon until about 30 minutes prior to the beginning of the meeting. It was days before I could remember it but fortunately the newspapers the next day dubbed us the "Gateway Committee" and so we were!
Stanhope’s account continues:
In late February 1965, as a new member of the new Society Hill Civic Association board I was invited to a meeting to address the expressway issue. Called at the instigation of John P. Bracken, it was quickly determined that an ad hoc group apart from the civic association should be definitely formed to publicize the problem and solve it with the six-block cover proposal.
Our little group began to define the task. After Ingersoll’s dramatic challenge to Bacon and Martha Schober’s initiatives, we sped up our work and began to assign responsibilities. Mr. Bracken seemed the natural chairman, but because of his many responsibilities as managing partner of his firm, he suggested that I take on the job, to my great surprise. What could I bring to the table? I had never participated in such a campaign, let alone act as chairman. Besides, what would my law firm think about this? I was still only an associate and did not want to jeopardize my chance of becoming a partner.
I decided I needed to talk to John R. Clark, who was then, as I recall, Managing Partner of my law firm, Dechert, Price & Rhoads. I do not think that I then knew that he served on the board of OPDC and with Mrs. Ingersoll on its Historic Houses Committee, but he already knew that OPDC was upset about Bacon’s highway plan. Mr. Clark also made it quite clear to me that it was one thing to criticize something, and another to have a responsible alternative. If we genuinely saw in Weise’s plan such an alternative, I would have his backing. When I told him I did, in my presence he called William Rafsky, OPDC’s Executive Vice President. Clark asked two questions: Did OPDC think that a citizen action committee would help the cause? The answer was yes. How long would the fight last? The answer was a few months. Clark thanked Rafsky and hung up the telephone. He encouraged me to take on the task. Aftermath: I became a partner in a few months and the fight took almost fifteen years.
The question of what I could bring to the table somehow faded into the background. From my vantage point what happened was that I had embarked on one of the great educational experiences of my life. Many teachers were close at hand, although none of these “teachers” thought of themselves in those terms. I gradually realized that in their zeal to win the fight they were giving me all sorts of good ideas, advice, suggestions and – at times – instructions. This teaching came from three directions. First, and closest at hand, were the members of our committee.
The second source of help was our first major ally, the nineteen-member Philadelphia Architects Committee, described above. One member was able to devote a good deal of time to the effort because he was temporarily unemployed. Our committee and the architects’ committee embraced each other’s aspiration eagerly. We agreed to cooperate in all respects, while maintaining our separate identities.
The third source of help, without which we would probably have lost our fight, was OPDC. This organization implemented the redevelopment of Society Hill. To help the reader understand its role in the highway fight, I will first refer to a famous series of articles written by journalist John G. McCullough in the Evening and Sunday Bulletin newspaper (now defunct) in June of 1965, entitled Philadelphia’s Movers and Shakers. The Bulletin described the series as follows:
[It] "is a study, in human tones, of the unique layer of civic leadership which performs an active, day-to-day function in the management of the affairs of the City of Philadelphia.
It is the story of the city’s business and professional leaders who, through their memberships in powerful advisory civic groups or on the boards of quasi-public, non-profit corporations play activist roles in the city’s growth and development.
The series . . . is presented both in terms of the men and women who formed the city’s civic power structure and the projects they undertake. The articles tell the part those leaders have had in Philadelphia’s physical and economic renaissance, in marked contrast to the situation in other large cities."
The articles confirmed what I had slowly discovered about OPDC as our fight proceeded forward through the spring of 1965. I believe that it will help the reader understand OPDC’s role if I summarize the key points made by McCullough. His articles attribute the terms “mover” and “shaker” to poet Arthur William Edgar O’Shaughnessy. The articles make a very clear distinction between the two types of leaders.
A mover is a person in the private section who “must, first off, be sufficiently sure in his own business or profession that he can take a public stand on any issue without having to worry about a negative reaction from his partners or his board of directors.” Second, that person “must also be wealthy in his or her own right or have access to wealth.” Movers in this city “work through their well-defined power blocs, the Greater Philadelphia Movement and others.” Their names and faces are well known, particularly among people in government and others in the private sector. In essence, they “have the will and the might to get things done.” A mover “must be willing to commit his time and efforts. And he must be hard. He cannot allow himself to be shouted down or stared down. These people got where they are because of this kind of hardness. This is why they can get things done.”
Shakers, on the other hand, “achieve by agitating and exciting for change, and often by contributing the ideas and the dreams that bring change. Their names, perhaps not their faces, are well known in City Hall, in the State Capitol in Harrisburg and in Washington.” They “often serve as the goads or the civic conscience” for the movers. However, a shaker might not or need not have the power base that a mover must have.
McCullough went on to say that “Philadelphia’s ‘movers’ and its ‘shakers’ work together, for the most part, in easy concord. Each group appears content with its role in the power structure, each respects the other’s. They are mutually sustaining and interact to the point where it is at times difficult to distinguish between them.”
McCullough nevertheless made a clear distinction between movers and shakers, a distinction that is frequently ignored when the terms are now used. He acknowledged that “Some active Philadelphians are, in fact both ‘movers’ and ‘shakers.’”
Perhaps the most important reader of these articles was Joseph Clark, former Mayor and now senior U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania. He began to inquire about the expressway problem since he was passionately concerned about urban design.
As previously noted, when I spoke with John Clark (a cousin of the Senator) about my getting involved, I learned from him what Rafsky had confirmed: OPDC opposed the Bacon embankment plan. I knew that both Jared Ingersoll and his wife Agnes were both deeply involved with OPDC. Ingersoll was one of the “movers” and OPDC was one of the civic groups highlighted by McCullough’s articles. I had many conversations with both Ingersolls and with Rafsky, plus other OPDC board members over the next few years, and I learned much about how the movers and even some shakers really worked.
With two good allies -- the Philadelphia Architects Committee and OPDC -- our committee’s first task was to make sure that it had the people needed to conduct an effective campaign. I enlisted Gregory Harvey and Ferdinand Schoettle, associates at John Bracken’s law firm. The three of us had been recruited the previous spring by Senator Clark to act as the legal team in aid of Clark-supported candidate Genevieve Blatt in the absentee-ballot fight following the 1964 spring Democratic primary election. We won the fight, and Clark was grateful. I knew that both Harvey and Schoettle with their advocacy skills would be helpful to this new cause, and that Clark might also be of help in an entirely different way. On the Steering Committee were Martha Schober, Deborah Latta, Agnes Ingersoll, Jan Mears and James O’Connor, a former Congressional clerk. We needed someone knowledgeable in public relations, and Society Hill neighbor Franklin Roberts (husband of Lynne) stepped in to fill that slot. As the protest developed, Martha and Deborah took charge of the citizen’s campaign while I focused primarily on advancing the alternative solutions, working with OPDC, the government officials and the Architects Committee.