Masloff, 90, recalls a life less ordinary
Captured in a timeless pose, Luciano Pavarotti appears about to sing.
The great tenor holds Sophie Masloff in a waltz embrace, and she is smiling with delight.
The framed photo on the wall of her Squirrel Hill home and other pictures and mementos -- a cartoonist's parody of Mayor Sophie's beehive hairstyle hung with Christmas ornaments; a snapshot with Fred Rogers; Masloff in Moscow, protesting Soviet policy regarding Jewish refuseniks -- offer glimpses into the former Pittsburgh mayor's long and storied life.
She was born 90 years ago today in the city's Hill District.
Masloff remembers Pavarotti as a charming man -- both their mothers worked in cigar factories -- but she's no opera fan.
"Not really. Too high class. I'm a peasant," she says.
She keeps most memorabilia in a plastic box, stored out of sight. Yesterday's news, Masloff says.
And she wants nothing for her birthday, no presents or fuss. A day by herself reading the newspapers or a paperback romance would be fine, she says. Or, if the weather is nice, maybe a short spin in her 21-year-old Cadillac. "I don't go out on the parkway or any place like that that requires skill."
"She was never one to sit around, my mother," says Linda Busia, 53, of Collier, Masloff's only child. "I think that keeps her going, knowing that she's got to get up and do things. I check on her in the morning and at noon, and we call each other to say good night."
Today's greeting will be: "We love you. Happy birthday," Busia said.
Linda and Nicholas Busia and their children, Michael and Jennifer, wanted to keep secret any possible special plans. Masloff's husband Jack, a security guard, died in 1992. They were married for more than 50 years.
"I wish her a lot more birthdays," says granddaughter Jennifer Busia, 31. "Every year she says, 'I don't want anybody to make a big deal out of it. Save the money.' She does throw out hints, though. Like, she loves Opium perfume, but she refuses to spend the money."
During a recent interview at her high-rise apartment, Masloff opened the keepsakes container and laid out some of her favorites.
An inscription in the program when she graduated in 1935 from Fifth Avenue High School, a former school that served the Lower Hill District, predicted Sophie Friedman would make somebody a good secretary. Her first job out of high school was bookkeeper for a butter and egg company in the Strip District.
She worked as a secretary in several county government jobs, and in 1938 started a 38-year stint as clerk in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas.
The reprint of an 1988 editorial on KDKA-TV said "the tragic death of Pittsburgh Mayor Dick Caliguiri ... left a huge void in the city. Luckily, we have someone who is capable and keeping the office running smoothly, without rancor, free from political brawls, Mayor Sophie Masloff."
A news clip heralded Masloff's victory over five men in the 1989 Democratic primary for mayor.
Bill Clinton, one of her favorite presidents, wished her well in a handwritten note from the White House after Masloff's sextuple heart bypass surgery in 1999.
In 1992, when he was running for president, Clinton called the Pittsburgh mayor's office and introduced himself. Masloff, thinking a prankster was on the line, said: "Yeah, and this is the Queen of Sheba," and hung up.
"He laughed about it afterwards," Masloff says.
She loved President Harry Truman.
Once, the president's daughter, Margaret Truman, booked the Syria Mosque in Pittsburgh for a 1947 performance in what she hoped was a budding career as a singer, but only a few tickets sold. "She had aspirations, but she was really no vocalist," Masloff says. Then-Mayor David L. Lawrence put the Democratic machine into operation selling tickets. He counted on Masloff, who worked for the county, as one of his veteran party loyalists.
"He called me in and said, 'Look, we can't embarrass the president of the United States,'" she says. "I went to the city and county employees and went to the department heads and said, 'Get your people to this concert tonight.'"
In January 1988, when Masloff became president of City Council, it was the culmination of a lifetime of work in the Democratic Party and employment in local government. She became involved in politics in the mid-1930s, helping Lawrence create the party organization that took control of city government from the Republican Party and established Pittsburgh as the Democratic stronghold it remains today.
"Mayor Lawrence was a dear friend," she says. "I had a profound admiration for him."
But William McNair, the first person elected mayor by the Democratic organization Lawrence headed, gave the party a rough start when he took office in 1934.
"I came to know him, and he was nutty as a fruitcake," Masloff says of McNair. "He didn't last very long."
Masloff became known as Pittsburgh's grandmother after breaking through other political barriers to become the first woman and first Jewish person to serve as mayor.
Then 70 and a grandmother of two, she became mayor when Caliguiri died in May 1988. It was Masloff's personal brand of politics, however, that propelled her career, including her election in 1989 to a full term as mayor, say longtime friends and associates.
"She came from an era in which great politicians engendered unfailing personal loyalty," said attorney Joseph Sabino Mistick, who served as Masloff's chief of staff. "There are those of us who served Sophie while she was mayor who stand ready to serve her to this day. In our mind, she is still the mayor and still deserving of our time and attention and loyalty."
Masloff, a Democratic national committeewoman, has attended every Democratic national convention since 1956. She's been a delegate for each convention since 1960. She was inspired to become a political activist at 17 when she saw first lady Eleanor Roosevelt dedicate the Bedford Dwellings housing project in Pittsburgh.
Lew Borman, Masloff's former press secretary, says "much of her charm is a wonderful sense of humor."
Borman says the speeches he wrote for her "could never hold a candle" to elements she added from her own insight and humor.
Frederick Frank, 60, of Squirrel Hill, a close friend for 40 years, says Masloff's integrity is a key to her character.
"She has absolutely no pretense," he said.
Masloff says: "I'm somewhat of an oddity. To this day, The New York Times calls me about something that happened many years ago. They precede everything with saying, 'There aren't very many of you left.' So that's my claim to fame. I've outlived a lot of people. But I have a vast knowledge of people."
She doesn't view 90 as a special milestone.
"It's just another year in my life," she says. "I've seen so much. Sometimes I think about how lucky I've been. Here I am, the daughter of immigrants, with little education, and I've been all over the world representing the city of Pittsburgh, and I've met such wonderful people."
She was born Dec. 23, 1917, the daughter of Jennie and Louis Friedman, Romanian immigrants. Her father, an insurance salesman, died when Sophie was 2. Her mother, who spoke no English and couldn't read or write, was left to raise four children as best she could in the Hill District, then an enclave for Jewish immigrants.
"There was a tobacco factory around the corner and she went there and rolled stogies," Masloff says. "She would buy two bananas and we'd each get a half.
"We were very, very poor, and it was just a horrible life as a child, but I came through it and just think of the great honor I had. What an incredible honor it was for me to be elected mayor of Pittsburgh. My mother, if she were alive, would never have believed what happened to me."
Sophie's World
Sophie Masloff gained notoriety as a Pittsburgh version of Mrs. Malaprop, the fictional character who made silly blunders in her use of words.
The former Pittsburgh mayor says some of the mistakes were deliberate, inspired by her sense of humor. Either way, a colorful and candid use of words -- Sophie-speak -- is ingrained in her persona.
Rock star Bruce Springsteen became Bruce Bedspring. Deadheads, followers of the rock group The Grateful Dead, were Deadenders. The Who she called The How.
Posing for a photo with an official from Yugoslavia, Masloff said, "You know, I've never been to Czechoslovakia." The official was taken aback. "Madame Mayor, I'm from Yugoslavia." Without missing a beat, Masloff replied, "I know that, but the truth is, I've never been to Czechoslovakia." Everybody in the room, including the foreign official, had a good laugh.
She sometimes started her speeches with the line: "As Henry the VIII said to each of his wives, don't worry, I won't keep you long."
When the Penguins won the Stanley Cup, her staff prepared remarks for the mayor. Instead, Masloff opened with a shrill impression of hockey broadcaster Mike Lange's goal call, "Well, scratch my back with a hacksaw!"
Behind the scenes, when rhetoric got heated around the idea of privatizing the National Aviary, a former staffer recalls the mayor's quip: "Why don't we just open a window and let 'em fly out?"
The legacy
"¢ Pittsburgh's first female and first Jewish mayor, serving from 1988 through 1993
"¢ Crawford-Roberts housing plan in the Lower Hill
"¢ Got a Commonwealth Court judge to force striking Port Authority employees to go back to work, ending a 26-day walkout in 1991
"¢ Pitched the idea of a stadium for the Pirates in 1991, though most balked at the idea
"¢ Created a five-member ethics board to hear complaints from people against city officials and employees
"¢ Jump-started development projects that faltered, including the Washington's Landing residential and office development
"¢ Privatized four city-owned assets that were costing the city money: The Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium, the National Aviary, Phipps Conservatory and the Schenley Park golf course
