William Donald Schaefer - Mayor of Baltimore

Mayor of Baltimore

Schaefer served four terms as mayor, being re-elected in 1975, 1979 and 1983, each time receiving 85% or more of the vote. He was known for his attention to detail, taking notes of strewn garbage and other violations as he rode around, and ordering them fixed immediately. A famous photograph shows him dressed in an old-fashioned striped bathing suit, in the seal pool at the then-new National Aquarium in Baltimore to settle a wager that it would not be opened in time. In 1984, in a political move to give the majority African-American population more power in the city of Baltimore, Schaefer named Bishop L. Robinson as the Baltimore Police Department's first African-American Police Commissioner, a position previously dominated by Irish American and Italian American members of the police department.

Throughout his tenure as mayor Schafer realized that the closings of large manufacturing plants like Bethlehem Steel and General Motors would negatively impact the quality of life in Baltimore and add to the city's unemployment rate. His administration turned to tourism as a possible alternative. He pushed for and saw built a new convention center in downtown Baltimore as well as the opening of Baltimore's famed Harborplace. Schaefer was hailed for transforming a deteriorating city into a hub of national tourism. With new businesses, new hotels, a new National Aquarium and the new convention center, Baltimore had been revived. Harborplace had 18 million visitors its first year, 1980-81. In 1984, Esquire Magazine named him "the best mayor in America".