A white hat in center's ring Popular ex-Police Commissioner John F. Timoney is emerging as a candidate to lead the quarrelsome Convention Center.

No one is officially searching yet, but already there is one prominent candidate emerging to head the beleaguered Convention Center: John F. Timoney.

The former Philadelphia police commissioner's name has created a buzz on the Convention Center floor and at police headquarters. The man who would be charged with keeping order among the Convention Center's quarrelsome labor unions also has the public support of a key tourism leader.

Reached yesterday at the New York security firm where he has worked since last year, Timoney said nobody from the Convention Center had contacted him. He also did not rule out anything, saying, "obviously a challenging job always interests me. . . . The outcome of what is going on now with the Convention Center is vital to the well-being and growth of the city."

And the Convention Center job would present the chance to share with tourists the love he bestows on his adopted hometown.

The popular ex-commissioner, who still keeps a Rittenhouse Square apartment, has not hidden his unhappiness with his executive security job at Beau Dietl & Associates, despite earning more than double the $140,000 a year he made as police commissioner.

This month, Timoney, 54, lost a bid to become the police chief in Los Angeles. While he was still in the running, he told the Los Angeles Times: "I miss the phone calls at 3 o'clock in the morning. 'Commissioner, we've got a problem. - We shot the wrong guy.' I miss being part of the action."

Whether he would find the action he is looking for at the Convention Center, where major trade shows require a workforce of about 300 compared with the 7,000 Philadelphia police officers he once led, is uncertain.

Bernard C. Watson, the chairman of the board that runs the center, could not be reached yesterday. But one board member, who asked not to be named, said Timoney's candidacy did not have "a lot of substance. He's got no experience here. . . . But stranger things have happened in a vacuum."

Timoney, whose name recognition rivals that of longtime Philadelphia politicos, does have one important fan.

"He'd be an excellent, excellent choice," Tom Muldoon, president of the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau, said in an interview yesterday. "I don't have a vote. But I don't think anyone would question that he would be a strong manager."