Marion Barry passing...where is the love?

The first crack smoking mayor, not Rob Ford.

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"The bitch set me up."

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In Ernest T's voice.

We don't care.

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"The bitch set me up."

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"If you take out the killings, Washington actually has a very very low crime rate."

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Like a number of black leaders, he was very embarrassing to the community. Many would prefer to forget him and very few would want to honor and commemorate him.

He was an OT boss. All he really wanted was hookers and blow.

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Tax dollars being taken from the 50 states did a ton for the city.

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FIFY

"One more time, you know, for old time sake"

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I don't live there, so I don't know. What all did he do?

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inside DC he'll be remembered for promoting both downtown development and employment opportunities for poor and lower-middle-class African Americans. As Pat Buchanan noted, that decade laid the groundwork for Washington's emergence into a modern, sophisticated world capital; until then it was a medium-sized Southern city ruled by a Committee of Congress.

Barry, imperfections and all, was a leading player in helping to shape that modern city. Among other things, he had a major city office building constructed right in the heart of a porn- and prostitution-dominated area along 14th Street, NW, not far from the White House. There was a lot of resistance to this inside the city bureaucracy and on the Council, but within a few years the presence of all those middle-class, white-collar professionals helped promote investments in restaurants, shops, theaters, and private office buildings. Today, that area is so desirable that a major developer wants to exchange land needed for a new soccer stadium in another part of the city for the parcel on which the original building stands. The city workers and many Council members oppose the move. It's a tremendous success in terms of Barry's full legacy.