My wife discovered a gem recently.
While attending a fundraising party she met someone who converted old videos to DVD’s.
Searching through her archive of videos, she discovered footage from Delray’s first All America City bid in 1993.
About 140 residents made the trip to Tampa after qualifying for the finals in a hotly contested competition sponsored by the National Civic League.
In ’93, the All America City competition attracted a record 150 plus applicants, cities ranging in size from Pittsburgh to small towns in Tennessee.
Delray was chosen one of 30 finalists and ended up bringing home the award. In 2001, the city would take its second All America City title in Atlanta, becoming the first Florida city to win the award twice.
I was a reporter during the ’93 awards and remember being disappointed when my newspaper denied my request to travel to Tampa to witness the event. I had to cover it remotely, calling officials during and after the competition. By 2001, I was on the City Commission and we brought another large contingent to Atlanta to showcase our cities progress.
Viewing the footage, I was reminded how amazing the All America City awards were and hopefully still are.
Yes, there is a performance piece of the process that some may find hokey, but there was also some serious grilling from a panel of grizzled civic veterans who ask in-depth questions of participating cities.
It’s a heated competition between cities that are really serious about solving problems and working together.
The All America City award doesn’t mean you’re perfect, but it does mean that you are hard at work finding innovative solutions to difficult problems.
In 1993, Delray had some very hard problems to work on: poverty, poor schools, drug abuse, crime.
The Decade of Excellence was being implemented and so were ideas from Visions 2000 and the earlier Atlantic Avenue Task Force.
There were some green shoots happening downtown, but we were far from the thriving central business district that we see today.
Still, in viewing the official and raw footage from the event, mostly shot by my wife Diane–then assistant planning director, you could see the camaraderie, unity, confidence and excitement among a cross section of the community.
The 140 member contingent that travelled to Tampa was a large party compared to other cities and also very diverse. Black and white, young and old, east and west, business leaders and neighborhood activists and a city staff that oozed confidence and excitement.
It was fun for me to see faces that I haven’t seen in awhile, our transformative police chief Rick Overman, our former volunteer coordinator Mike Wright, the chair of the effort the wonderful Sandra Almy, Frank McKinney, Chuck Ridley, Lula Butler, Elizabeth Butler Burrows (who was a little girl) Bob Currie, Bill Wood, Frances Bourque, Chris Brown, Mike Weiner, Kevin Egan, Debra Dowd, Cory Cassidy, David Kovacs and on and on.
It was very poignant to see some departed Delray Beachers who were so important to our community: Mr. and Mrs. Pompey, Ken Ellingsworth, Helen Coopersmith and the wonderfully kind John Tallentire.
The Mayor at the time, my friend Tom Lynch was there as well; with his children who were little back then but now grown and running businesses.
The footage showed a really young and very energetic Joe Gillie leading the large group through the performance part of the competition. Joe is retiring in a few months. What a run, he has had. What a run.
My favorite part of the footage was the behind the scene shots, the breakfast footage, where neighbors relaxed and laughed with each other. The scenes of the booth, where people posed for photos and picked up literature about this beautiful town on the ocean in South Florida were also great.
Of course, hearing the former Governor of Hawaii call Delray’s name as a winner was also fun to watch. The yells of joy, the relief, the celebration.
Sandra Almy was on the verge of tears when she thanked the jurors and recognized the large group who made the journey and gave of their time and talent to move their hometown forward.
1993 was at the beginning, when it was exciting and the possibilities were enormous. They still are. At least I believe so.
I came to Delray in 1987, it was a vastly different place back in those days.
Times change, towns change, people move on. Many are still here, some move away and some pass.
But spending some time with those old videos reminded me of why I fell in love with this place.
You could feel the spirit, you could sense the warmth and you could see a community coming together to forge a future together.
It was magic. Pure magic.
1993: A Magical Year
June 1, 2015 By 2 Comments
Thank you for this beautiful piece, Jeff. My wife and I retired and bought a home in Delray Beach in 2001. We knew little about Delray’s history then, but we felt a sense of aliveness and vibrancy that captivated and captured us. The the “Village by the Sea” signs in town that proclaim Delray’s “All American City” designation, became immediate sources of pride for us. My now well-worn T shirt that possesses the All American City logo, has been worn with pride for many years (and BTW, should be reproduced for next year’s Delray Affair … if not sooner). Delray Beach is our primary residence, living there eight months of the year. We live on a beach in a place called Fire Island (6 miles off the south shore of Long Island) the other four months. We are often asked by northern friends to compare the nature of our existence between these two seemingly disparate places. We say we go from “Heaven to Paradise” between our two homes. We naturally find ourselves touting the many virtues of Delray, as a place where there is always something interesting going on in town. We feel like we are ambassadors for what has become our hometown. We give thanks to those visionaries who worked so diligently to achieve the transformation, to create the “magic,” that led to our village becoming an “All American City .”
Thanks for the wonderful comments Patrick. So glad you have found heaven and paradise. As a native Long Islander, I am well aware of Fire Island. It’s beautiful. Thanks for all of your support!