Why Are Men Who Build Skyscrapers Afraid of This Woman?

So all of this boot-quaking and fear over what Saffron will write next is sort of comical, says American Institute of Architects Philadelphia executive director John Claypool: “I don’t think an architecture critic in any city is going to make people lose business. Her impact is for someone working on their next project to think, ‘How can I make this better?’”


SAFFRON DIDN’T need formal architecture training or a vocabulary of “archobabble,” as one developer calls it, to shine a spotlight on the planning and zoning problems that have seeped into the foundations of this city. Those conversations once took place only in newsrooms, back rooms and boardrooms; last year, thanks in part to her coverage, they became an issue in the mayor’s race, and helped nudge Auspitz off the zoning board. As a multiple Pulitzer nominee for her criticism and a finalist in 2004, Saffron has attracted national attention, including interest from the Los Angeles Times and New York Times. Moving west with her husband, novelist Ken Kalfus, and their 14-year-old daughter wasn’t appealing, but if the New York Times had made her an offer instead of promoting from within, she says it would have been hard to resist. Still, Saffron doesn’t want to leave town. “Philadelphia is a really great subject,” she says. “What I do is so much more important for this city [than it would be for New York]. I feel like what I do is like a Dickens novel. It’s cumulative, and I’m in for the long haul. If you make issues of urbanism and civic values the subject of conversation, if you raise the standards, you’ve accomplished something.”

Saffron and Marimow never spoke about the Inquirer’s unusually sympathetic presentation of Dranoff’s letter, but the following month, her colleagues in the newsroom sent a message of their own. They handed Saffron the Ralph Vigoda Award — the paper’s monthly newsroom MVP trophy — for her work in October, which, not coincidentally, included the Symphony House column. Marimow himself surprised Saffron at her desk with a few dozen other staffers to read a gushing proclamation (and drew no parallels between her work and that of an ax murderer). “She had a real bang-up month,” says Nichols, who co-chairs the Vigoda committee. “It might have been in the back of people’s minds, when they may have been feeling a little chilled in their role [at the paper], to acknowledge solidarity for someone who’s honestly doing her job.”

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