EX-PITTSBURGH MAYOR PROPOSES "A LAZARUS ON EVERY CORNER" FOR BIG EASY
NEW ORLEAN - Federal prosecutors today announced they won't prosecute former Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy for his role in allegedly cutting a deal with the local fire union in exchange for votes in the 2002 election.
Murphy, now a consultant for the Urban Land Institute offering assistance in the reconstruction of New Orleans, said he can now concentrate completely on rebuilding "the Big Easy." Toward that end, Murphy unveiled an ambitious plan that he says "will cause everybody to utter, 'Katrina who?'"
"The state of Louisiana, with a healthy dose of Federal funding, would construct multiple Lazarus department stores throughout the city," Murphy explained. "There would be as many as six downtown." In close proximity to every Lazarus would be a Lord and Taylor department store, also funded by tax dollars.
"Department stores will bring the suburbanites back downtown as nothing else will," Murphy proclaimed. He explained to reporters that this exact plan served Pittsburgh well in the 1940's and 1950's. He refused, however, to discuss more recent decades.
"I ask you rhetorically," he said, "who wants to shop in the convenience of their local indoor mall, with its free parking, climate control and relative safety, when they can journey to an exciting, vibrant downtown area with, admittedly, terrific traffic jams, parking garages that gouge you, hot and humid conditions and the possibility of a mugging?"
Murphy grudgingly conceded that Lazarus wants nothing to do with the plan, even if it would be given the stores free of cost. "That's so like Lazarus," he joked. "Always playing hard to get." He said that if Lazarus can't be bribed into "playing ball, like we did with them in Pittsburgh," he will propose "Plan 'B'" which would have New Orleans build multiple sports facilities at the same time, regardless of whether the tax-paying voters want or can afford them.
