Former Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy honored with ceremonial key to city
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Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto on Thursday honored the city’s second longest-serving mayor — Tom Murphy — with a ceremonial key to the city, crediting the North Side resident with creating the city’s riverfront parks and trails and for his long record of public service.
Peduto noted that Murphy’s tenure from 1994-2006 was marked by a financial collapse that nearly pushed the city into bankruptcy, but said the former mayor laid a foundation that helped the city recover.
“The city that the mayor had was one that needed leadership that required vision,” Peduto said. “It was one that required leadership that was willing to take bold action, and it was one that would require years for the rest of Pittsburgh to fully understand that course was necessary to do.”
Murphy said his administration, among other things, purchased a former South Side steel mill that became the Southside Works commercial district, a former Sears store in East Liberty that was replaced by a new Target and an old Squirrel Hill slag dump that’s now the Summerset at Frick residential development.
It was also fraught with controversy, including the city’s entry into state financial oversight, known as Act 47, an ugly protest by laid off police officers outside the City-County Building and a federal investigation into a contract with city firefighters.
“Anytime you want to do something different, there are going to be 100 people yelling at you, at least, and nothing changes unless you are prepared to move forward,” Murphy said. “Overcoming that obstacle was really a big challenge that we faced.”
Murphy’s family and former staffers joined him for the ceremony in Peduto’s offices.
The former mayor, 75, who now works for the Washington, D.C.-based Urban Land Institute, said being mayor was the “best job in the world,” but he doesn’t miss it.
“You get burned out,” he said.
He now spends his time traveling the world to talk about Pittsburgh’s economic recovery. He’s also purchased a log cabin in Westmoreland County dating to 1760 that he plans to rebuild. The logs are marked and in storage.
“I’m going to build it, but I don’t know where I’m going to build it,” he said.
Bob Bauder is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Bob at 412-765-2312, bbauder@tribweb.com or via Twitter @bobbauder.