He compared its famously dull, corporate vibe to the unvarying “Mad Men” uniform worn by the legions of lawyers and chemical engineers who once populated its downtown: “a white shirt, a sincere tie and 12-pound wingtips.”
“It was not a creative culture,” he said. “It was pretty predictable, stay within the guard rails.”
The main mystery about the place seems to be identifying something, anything, that distinctly says “Wilmington.” Ask residents to name a unique feature and the universal response is a long pause....
This mayor is kind of annoying! How do you get to be mayor with such a sadsack attitude toward your city. I left there more than a half century ago, and I wouldn't take that tone. And I don't like the knee-jerk putdown of lawyers and chemical engineers. My father was a chemical engineer, and I don't think you should be overly obsequious about the "creative culture." Plus, it makes no sense to say "stay within the guard rails." Guard rails are put up to keep reckless people from going over the precipice. If people are actually acculturated to follow rules and norms, the trite expression might be "color within the lines." But everyone stays within the guard rails. That's the idea of guard rails! This man bothers me. Feeding quotes like that to the NYT! Your city finally catches the eye of the world and you have nothing to offer.
I like that the NYT article begins with a photograph of the Charcoal Pit — even though the picture shows the sign with the first 3 letters burnt out. The caption calls it a "local favorite" of Joe Biden's. It is the Wilmington restaurant for me. I've written about it from time to time, including the when Joe Biden confused Delaware's declaration of independence from Pennsylvania with Delaware's ratification of the Constitution. He said: "We declared our independence on December the 7th." Which just by chance is today. Delaware Day. (It's also Pearl Harbor Day.) How could you grow up in Delaware and not know about Delaware Day? At the time, I said, "Maybe he was seated at the next table [from young me] at the Charcoal Pit."
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Delaware was the last state to repeal slavery.
"How could you grow up in Delaware and not know about Delaware Day?"
Did you just discover Joe Biden?
It's so tedious to have to see these silly puff pieces about and around our would-be overlords coming from the usual sources. "Oh look! Biden's hometown is having a "moment"! Isn't it great that ol' Joe had such humble beginnings?". Honestly it this sort of thing was revolting during both the Clinton and Obama eras. Now we're (most likely) in for 4 years of bilge about how great Joe Biden is.
Are they going to build a 10-story lunchpail in Joe's honor?
Or a Paul Bunyan-esque statue of Joe with lifelike leg hair?
Let's be honest, some towns are dull, and some dull-town mayors are honest about it.
"This man bothers me."
Lemme guess: prog. Amirite?
Increase your Delawareness.
Wilmington is the home of refineries.
Joe's knowledge of Delaware's history was just a preview of his potted-plant mentality.
Wilmington has always been on I-95 between Washington, Philly and New York, you know.
I admint my first reaction was: What are you talking about?! Wilmington is on US-17 and sorta I-40.
Your city finally catches the eye of the world and you have nothing to offer.
Metaphor alert!
Someone touched a nerve. Sounds like you still have some love in your heart for your hometown. That's a great thing, imho. Could be the mayor is engaging in some inside joking about the town? We think he's being all Sad Sack-ish, the locals are quietly chuckling to themselves and with him? Self-deprecating? They love their city and think it the best ever, though don't want to come off as braggarts?
I have it on good authority that Joe is from Scranton PA so I'm not surprised he got Delaware's history wrong. Then again, he's wrong about everything.
My blog article about organized crime and politics in Wilmington in 1972:
Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran and Joe Biden's 1972 Election Victory
Just another pol on the make, aiming for an undersecretary's spot with benefits in Slow Joe's menagerie of kleptos..
The Delaware politicians all live in the same Wilmington neighborhood, and their children all go to the same (non-public) schools. The political jobs are handed down in order like the rites of succession in the British monarchy, and everyone in on the game thinks it is wonderful. Outsiders not allowed--too déclassé, doncha know?
It is quite an accomplishment these days for a white guy to get elected and re-elected mayor in a town that is 60% AA.
That, or an accomplishment of a party machine which is in total control of the city's governance.
Wilmington has always been on I-95 between Washington, Philly and New York, you know.
I admit my first reaction was: What are you talking about?! Wilmington is on US-17 and sorta I-40.
Also, interstate highways didn't even exist before the 1950s.
Scranton PA might be annoyed but they were in on the steal so will be rewarded.
For a town surrounded by DuPont chemical plants, I would think staying "within the guard rails" is probably a pretty useful approach! Otherwise . . . boom!
Purzycki looks like a total goombah.
I live about 30 miles from Wilmington and I can assure you it is not the center of the universe.
"Purzycki looks like a total goombah."
Or the Polish equivalent : )
I predict the residents won't be so proud of their most famous son a few months from now.
---This man bothers me. Feeding quotes like that to the NYT! Your city finally catches the eye of the world and you have nothing to offer. [AA]
When NYT Makes, the World Must Take.
---I live about 30 miles from Wilmington and I can assure you it is not the center of the universe. [Jersey Fled]
Right! Everyone around there knows Chadd's Ford is the center of the universe.
@Kai Akker:
Trenton is NOT that far away.
Right up the river. At the fall line?
Ohio might be round at the ends, but Delaware is round on top.
Like our hostess I also grew up in Delaware - probably less than 10 miles from her old haunts in Claymont, but about 10 years after her. I've moved around a bit since then and currently live in New Jersey just outside of New York City. I still have family there so, except when forbidden by Covid fear mongering, I still visit often.
Delaware claim to fame: no sales tax, DuPont and the various spin-offs, and banks.
I've met a few politicians, never thought they were the best and the brightest, but I'm sure that's true everywhere. Can't think of anyone who actually likes Slow Joe, even among those who voted for him.
I haven't been inside the Charcoal Pit in over 30 years, but I have been in Chadd's Ford about 2 years ago, so there is that.
Churchy LaFemme: said...
I admint my first reaction was: What are you talking about?! Wilmington is on US-17 and sorta I-40.
What!! How could you forget US-421?!?
Of all the nerve......
Michael K said...
Scranton PA might be annoyed but they were in on the steal so will be rewarded.
I suspect in the long run Scranton will be relieved that everyone thinks Wilmington is Joe's home town.
From the post:
"Plus, it makes no sense to say "stay within the guard rails."
It does in PA. They're called 'Guide Rails.'
"... including when Joe Biden confused..."
A phrase that's going to get a lot of use in the months to come.
Pennsylvania's Guide Rails.
It is?
Wilmington is a dump. Been there. It’s like a dumpy version of south Philly without Italians or Greeks.
Nobody in SE PA and Southern Jersey thinks about Wilmington, or Delaware for the most part, unless their looking to get some cheaper, tax free booze just across the border, and given the amount those businesses advertise in the Philly Inquirer, business might be robust. Pennsylvanian's really haven't thought much about Delaware since the separation of the two colonies in the early 1700s (both still owned by William Penn though), as the Quakers of Philly were such arrogant A-holes toward the lower counties.
Every one of these cities in the mid-Atlantic region is on the fall line.
Wiki:
Atlantic Seaboard fall line (Mid-Atlantic and Southern fall lines):
Trenton, New Jersey, on the Delaware River[4]
Paterson, New Jersey, on the Passaic River[citation needed]
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the Schuylkill River[5][6]
Wilmington, Delaware, on Brandywine Creek[7]
Baltimore, Maryland, on the Jones Falls, Gunpowder Falls and Gwynns Falls[8]
Washington, D.C., on the Potomac River[9][6]
Fredericksburg, Virginia, on the Rappahannock River[9]
and more, down to Tuscaloosa, Ala.
"It’s like a dumpy version of south Philly without Italians or Greeks."
Wow...must be pretty bad.
Philadelphia is the biggest shithole city (of large cites) I've visited in the U.S.
It's an absolute dump...
Let's compare the creative output of chemical engineers over the last century to that of, say, painters. As a chemical engineer, I once led a team of scientists and engineers in synthesizing a fragment of the HIV virus for a novel treatment for patients for whom cocktail therapies had failed. It practically resurrected people. But sure, worship Robert Rauschenberg or Andy Warhol.
Oso Negro let me tip my hat to you and to other chemical engineers. In 1900 the world population was slightly less than 2 billion; today some 7.7 billion people live in the world.
I'd give chemical engineers either the credit--or the blame--for that almost 400% population increase. The Haber Bosch process was developed in Germany just before WW I. It allowed the fixing of nitrogen out of the atmosphere--or out of light hydrocarbons. Its intended purpose was to provide nitrates for explosives---the German military.
But it also provided nitrogen for fertilizer--and without the Haber Bosch process and its progeny, there's no way that agriculture in the world could feed almost 8 billion people.
Wilmington? is that a suburb of Scranton, or Something?
I mean, Come ON people! Delaware is Not a Real State!
Next thing you know, people will be claiming that the Rhode Island, and Providence Plantations are a state!!!!
When they declare Wilmington is having a moment it sounds like a middle aged woman having a bad day and hot flashes.
Don't forget Richmond VA on the James. Atlanta is an acception rooted firmly within the Piedmont physiographic provence.
“a white shirt, a sincere tie and 12-pound wingtips.”
As a retired businessman who wore designer suits and shoes for decades, I gotta ask, what the heck are 12-pound wingtips?
Maybe being self-deprecating is a Wilmington, DE kind of thing. When I think of Wilmington, I think of Wilmington, NC first and then maybe Wilmington, DE. The only thing I know about Wilmington, DE is that it has an Amtrak station.
My uncle, a DuPont chemist, and his family lived on the north side of Wilmington DE from 1961 and vacationed every year at Holden Beach, just southwest of Wilmington NC. My aunt's family's ocean-front house was lost in Hurricane Hazel in the early 50's, and the lot is still under water. They were charging her $0.95 property tax twenty years ago.
I don’t think I’ve ever been to Wilmington, but as a MD native, I’m quite familiar with the other end of the state. I lived for a summer with my aunt/uncle/cousins in Georgetown, my ex wife is from Seaford, and I’ve vacationed many times in the Dewey, Bethany, and Rehobeth beaches. Back when it was trendy to have those oval stickers on your rear car window, the one of choice in those places was LSD (lower slower Delaware.)
Wilmington is located in the weirdest geographical oddity in the country, the Twelve Mile Circle. If not for the circle, it would be in southeastern Pennsylvania.
My grandmother's oldest sister lived in Wilmington and we used to visit before I-95. Quite a trek. The only thing I remember about Wilmington were the brick streets, which now the city has decided to restore after covering them all with asphalt.
My father used to talk about Dupont -- how they were famous for their antisemitism. Even though Chemistry was his passion and he wanted to be a chemical engineer he was persuaded to go to medical school instead because of the risk of not being able to get a job. This wasn't just his imagination according to this historical record: U.S. Chemical Corporation DuPont Helped Nazi Germany Because of Ideology, Israeli Researcher Says
I was going to say that they should just have gone on electing du Ponts who left the rest of the country alone, but I didn't know about the Nazi connection. Ireneé du Pont was apparently a supporter of eugenics and an admirer of Hitler and Mussolini, in spite being partly of Jewish ancestry (not much, to be sure, but even a little Jewish ancestry was frowned upon by society). I did know that the du Ponts hated FDR and financed the opposition to him, in spite of FDR Jr.'s marrying into the family (the marriage didn't last).
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