The Rehabilitation of Boss Shepherd's Reputation
Shepherd's legacy has been a matter of some debate since his death more than one hundred years ago. He has long been maligned as a corrupt, cronyist political boss, often compared to Boss Tweed, the leader of the Tammany Hall political machine of the same time period.
A statue of Shepherd which currently stands on Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, in front of the John A. Wilson Building (which now houses the offices and chambers of the Council and the Mayor of the District of Columbia,) has served as a symbol of his fluctuating reputation.
In 1979, during the first year of Mayor Marion Barry's administration, the statue was removed from its perch on Pennsylvania Avenue and warehoused in city storage. It reappeared in the mid-1980s near an otherwise-obscure D.C. Public Works building on Shepherd Avenue, S.W., in the District's remote Blue Plains neighborhood.
Near the beginning of the 21st century, Washington historian Nelson Rimensnyder started to argue for a restoration of Shepherd's reputation, calling him an "urban visionary" who singlehandedly transformed Washington into a major American city and championed aggressive social reform.
Largely as a result of Rimensnyder's efforts, and the efforts of those he persuaded, the Shepherd statue was returned in January 2005 to its previous place of honor. The statue now stands on its pedestal next to the sidewalk of Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, close to 14th Street, NW, and the northwest corner of the Wilson Building.
The D.C. neighborhood of Shepherd Park, where Shepherd once lived, is named for him, as is Alexander Shepherd Elementary School in that neighborhood.
Read more about this topic: Alexander Robey Shepherd, Legacy
Famous quotes containing the words boss, shepherd and/or reputation:
“When you overpay small people you frighten them. They know that their merits or activities entitle them to no such sums as they are receiving. As a result their boss soars out of economic into magic significance. He becomes a source of blessings rather than wages. Criticism is sacrilege, doubt is heresy.”
—Ben Hecht (1893–1964)
“The metaphor of the king as the shepherd of his people goes back to ancient Egypt. Perhaps the use of this particular convention is due to the fact that, being stupid, affectionate, gregarious, and easily stampeded, the societies formed by sheep are most like human ones.”
—Northrop Frye (b. 1912)
“The reputation of generosity is to be purchased pretty cheap; it does not depend so much upon a man’s general expense, as it does upon his giving handsomely where it is proper to give at all. A man, for instance, who should give a servant four shillings, would pass for covetous, while he who gave him a crown, would be reckoned generous; so that the difference of those two opposite characters, turns upon one shilling.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)