The Sixth Borough Independence War

From The Philadelphia Encyclopedia of Stuff That Didn't Happen (Yet)

by Joel Tannenbaum

Evan M. Lopez

Page 341

"You call this a fucking slice of pizza?" asked the 28-year-old native of Oyster Bay, Long Island.

If only the young online marketing consultant, recently relocated to Philadelphia from Greenpoint, Brooklyn, had judged the situation a little more carefully; if only he had kept his question — however rhetorically it was intended — to himself, many of the tragic events that followed might have been avoided.

If only he had asked the question of someone other than the counter staff of Lorenzo's, the famously short-tempered South Street pizzeria. If only it hadn't been quite so hot, or the barometric pressure had been a bit lower, then the recently emigrated New Yorker, his girlfriend, and their sweater-bedecked two-year-old corgi might have returned safely to their recently refurbished Fairmount row home, instead of being chased by an angry mob all the way to 11th and Cherry where they were barely in time to jump aboard a departing Chinatown bus.

This, and the copycat incidents that followed, were tragic. But they were doubly tragic in that they led to the events known collectively as the Sixth Borough Independence War.

There is conflicting evidence as to where the hated designation "Sixth Borough" originated, or the identity of the first Philadelphia journalist to sell their soul for a byline in the New York Times lifestyle section by using the hated phrase. But by 2016, it had become an emblem of the collective resentment felt by angry, native Philadelphians over rising rental prices, and over the perceived Gothamification of their city. For their part, the rapidly increasing expat population was amazed at the natives' hostility and their unwillingness to engage in hourlong conversations about the comparative size and expense of various apartments, or the staggering importance of being able to purchase a Vietnamese tofu hoagie within two blocks of one's apartment at 3 a.m.

This was the kindling waiting for a spark when news of the young web consultant, his girlfriend and their dog reached the motherland. New Yorkers demanded retribution. There were now more than 50,000 of them living in Philadelphia. If the city of New York couldn't protect its own citizens, then what good was it? Mayor Clinton was under tremendous pressure to respond: So preoccupied with scandal was his first term that his only significant mayoral act had been to repeal Michael Bloomberg's 2006 trans-fat ban. (His motivations were said to be personal.)

Thinking back to 1999, when the NATO bombing of Serbia had provided weeks of blissful distraction from his impeachment hearings, Clinton had an idea. As the first former U.S. president to hold such an office, he enjoyed power and influence that his colleagu