Michael Nutter

Up in New York, the billionaire mayor struts with a Master of the Universe swagger. Over in Chicago, the city chief leads with profane, aggressive bluster. The mayor of Philadelphia, however, has long been famous for high-SAT intellect and technocratic cool. Until Friday. That's when Michael Nutter elevated his macho quotient and one-upped Michael Bloomberg, Rahm Emanuel, and lots of other U.S. mayors by rappelling 280 feet from the top of Penn Center Plaza Tower 3 in Center City.

When New York developer Tony Goldman arrived in Philadelphia with plans to revitalize Center City's seedy 13th Street, almost everyone here wondered whether he was crazy. One of the skeptics was Michael Nutter, a city councilman in 1999 when Mr. Goldman sought tax incentives for his project. "We just all kind of looked at him and thought, 'What the hell are you talking about?' " Nutter said Wednesday. "He had all these ideas and a vision, and there was nothing going on down there.

In the upstairs bedroom of his West Philadelphia home, 13-year-old Michael Nutter tuned his radio as Joe Frazier was readying for his "Fight of the Century" with Muhammad Ali. Nutter listened when Frazier's left hook sent Ali spiraling to the mat in the 15th round. He listened when the judges handed Frazier a unanimous decision and a successful defense of the world heavyweight title. On Wednesday afternoon, four decades after Frazier's win over Ali, Mayor Nutter honored the late Philadelphia sports icon as he announced the city's plan to erect a statue of Frazier in 2013 at South Philadelphia's Xfinity Live!

In the upstairs bedroom of his West Philadelphia home, 13-year-old Michael Nutter tuned his radio as Joe Frazier was readying for his "Fight of the Century" with Muhammad Ali. Nutter listened when Frazier's left hook sent Ali spiraling to the mat in the 15th round. He listened when the judges handed Frazier a unanimous decision and a successful defense of the world heavyweight title. On Wednesday afternoon, four decades after Frazier's win over Ali, Mayor Nutter honored the late Philadelphia sports icon as he announced the city's plan to erect a statue of Frazier in 2013 at South Philadelphia's Xfinity Live!

These are schizophrenic times for Mayor Nutter. One day, he's in Philadelphia, unable to stop City Council from taking a flamethrower to his signature 2012 plan, the property-tax reform known as Actual Value Initiative. The next, he's in Orlando, basking in the applause of peers from across the country who elevated him to the presidency of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Pilloried in Philly, then feted in Florida, all within 48 hours. The split between Nutter's dual realities - one on the local stage, and the other played out nationally - is growing wider by the day. Nationally, between his new post and his steady stream of television appearances as an Obama surrogate and spokesman for urban America, Nutter is becoming a Democratic star, a slightly lower-voltage version of his "frenemy," Newark, N.J.'s Cory Booker.

ORLANDO, Fla. — Vice President Biden calls Mayor Nutter "one of my best friends in public life. " Michelle Obama addressed the mayor as "my dear friend" the last time she came to Philadelphia. Democratic pundit Donna Brazile wants Philadelphians to know that she has Nutter on speed dial. "Michael Nutter is a breath of fresh air. He likes to bring people together," Brazile said Thursday at the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting here, where Nutter was inaugurated as the organization's new president Saturday.

Competition for regattas heats up The Schuylkill Navy is heartened that rowing has grown in popularity at the high school, college, and recreational levels, and that new venues such as the Cooper River in South Jersey are emerging ("Moving up quickly," Sunday). The question "Does the future belong to the Cooper?" highlights the attractions of the enhanced Cooper venue, but also the financial challenge of putting on regattas in Philadelphia. Some regattas, wanting to avoid city-imposed fees, have decamped to the Cooper.

When the possibility of prohibiting discrimination against transgender people comes up, opponents often raise concerns about bathroom usage, of all things: "What about the men's and ladies' rooms?" It seems like a frivolous basis for denying an entire group of citizens their civil rights, but all too often, that's the tenor of discussions about legal protections for transgender individuals. It places little stock in our ability to assimilate, sympathize with, and simply deal with people whose experience of the world does not match our own.   Fortunately, the experience in Philadelphia has been different.