My pictures from the RNC were in black and white, as was everything else about that convention. Color seemed like the way to go for the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, July 25-28, 2016. The event drew a rainbow of beautiful faces, and the hot, moist air of Philadelphia had an uncanny light.
DNC Day 1: The new skyline of Philadelphia. As in a lot of American cities, developers here are falling over themselves to plant tall buildings in the ground before the recovery runs out. Thanks, Obama.
DNC Day 1: 30th Street Station.
DNC Day 1: So I get an Uber from 30th Street, and I roll up to the Logan Hotel on Logan Square to pick up my credentials. Hotels like this, usually there's a bellman to greet you or open your car door. This is who greeted me in the car port of the hotel, literally the first hand I shook in Philadelphia. #42 was suave in his blue suede shoes and in a good mood, doing what loves best, just hanging out, pressing the flesh, much to the consternation of his Secret Service detail, above left.
DNC Day 1: Sign posted in the lobby of the Logan. Lists like these get longer every year. Having been produced by the Democratic National Committee, this placard carries the union label.
DNC Day 1: The bitch of this convention is that the venue, the Wells Fargo Center (the Dems would gather in a place named for a bank) is far from the center of town, held at arm's length, as it were. The hotels, the late-night parties and the daytime action are in the hotels downtown, but the arena is a 20-minute subway ride away on the Broad Street SEPTA Line.
DNC Day 1: On the way to the subway, a huge sculpture represents democracy as clusterfuck, democracy as heroic struggle. "Government of the People" is by Jacques Lipschitz, bronze, 1976, at the Municipal Services Building on Broad Street. This mighty sculptural group is 30' high. Of course when I walked by, there was a protest going on.
DNC Day 1: Puerto Rican diaspora organizations were marching against the recently enacted "Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act", or Promesa, and its establishment of a financial oversight and management board for the island. The activists demanded independence for Puerto Rico, and accused the United States of "submerging Puerto Rico in an illegitimate debt of $70 billion" and wanting the people of the island to "pay with their blood" through Promesa. I looked in vain for a Democratic delegate at the protest.
DNC Day 1: Philadephia's SEPTA trains are trying to tell us something.
DNC Day 1: So I get on the subway to the Wells Fargo Center, and who should I see but my old homeboy, former LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa? This must be my day. Hizzoner and I share a name, (he began life as Tony Villar, from City Terrace on LA's East side) and a favorite restaurant, Chaya Venice. I believe the attractive woman behind him was trying to act as though she was not, in fact, with him (the Mayor is engaged to be married again, but not to her). I kid, I kid the Mayor.
The Philadelphia Police and the Secret Service get on the train at the next-to-last stop. Everyone without DNC credentials must leave the train before it takes off for the Wells fargo Arena stop. When I got to this last stop, when I emerged from the ground, this is what I saw: My old friend, the high-tech Secret Service fencing from Cleveland, and thousands and thousands of Bernie Sanders supporters chanting just outside the perimeter.