Bradley add/mike1st

Richard Riordan

Mayor

City of Los Angeles

Tom was an icon, a man who was tall in stature, handsome, and brilliant. Any place I was with him, people immediately recognized him as a leader, even if they didn’t know who he was. The downtown business leaders, represented by the Committee of 25, were staunch Tom Bradley supporters.

He was the right person at the right time to be mayor. He came in after the Watts uprising and galvanized the city. He was the black mayor where blacks only represented 15 percent of the population, and he was elected by a broad coalition of every race, creed and color.

He was an amazingly sharp person. I was president of the Recreation and Parks Commission and also the Coliseum Commission during the 1980s, and he appointed me to both. I worked with him on a lot of projects. He was a person who knew every detail of a project before a meeting. He was well-prepared, a doer. Like when I needed to put together a new park. I went into his office and told him about the availability of the property, and he immediately got on the phone and introduced me to key players in the city. And the thing was off and running. He didn’t waste a second.