Charleston blessed with priest's legacy

15 September 2004

CHARLESTON, S.C. - I have just left a funeral in this small city filled with history, beset by storms and teeming with hard-to- navigate freeways. The deceased is my uncle, Bob Kelly. His wake, held in a high school gymnasium, attracts some 1,500; the services the following day are standing room only, largely bringing downtown traffic to a halt. They come to honor and grieve a man who held a job not held in high repute these days: Catholic priest.

Father Kelly cut a large swath through Charleston, and Charleston through him. Raised just outside of Hartford and five years out of the seminary, he was sent at age 31 to what was then a sleepy backwater (so much so the church regarded it as "mission" territory) - a Connecticut Yankee in King Cotton's Court. Charleston was his home for the next 46 years and in his time there, the city changed in remarkable ways.

Charleston is in full bloom these days. The economy is strong and the area's beaches, golf courses, restaurants and festivals draw throngs of tourists (Conde Nast Traveler ranks Charleston one of the top three destinations in the country). The oldest part of the city is a peninsula, bounded by two rivers, the Ashley and the Cooper. If you can stand the humidity, the place is eminently walkable with lovely parks, stunning architecture and a magnificent waterfront.

The peninsula is but eight square miles, however. The entire city is 13 times as large and keeps growing as it (not without controversy) annexes surrounding areas. Charleston has just over 100,000 residents (only 550,000 in the metro area), but its rapid population growth (a stunning 49 percent since 1980) and its dynamism gives it the feel of a much bigger city.

Read the papers for a few days and the concerns seem surprisingly familiar. Affordable housing is scarce. Hot topics include a new 2 a.m. closing time for bars, permits for sidewalk cafes, height restrictions and a proposal to construct a downtown sports stadium. The city recently created a "Livability Court" (an initiative Boston would do well to emulate) that handles - and takes seriously - quality-of-life issues such as loud parties, poorly maintained buildings and uncontrolled dogs.

Growth has also created sprawl, some of it quite ugly. Rather than just complain, however, Charleston came up with a solution that may well be a model for others. In 1991, it annexed Daniel Island, a large tract of mostly empty marshland to its north. Knowing it would be developed, the city worked with private firms on a master plan for the creation of an entirely new community, modeled on downtown Charleston's success. Homes are built close to streets, there is a real city center and one doesn't need to drive forever simply to shop or work.

All of these issues - sprawl, housing and quality-of-life concerns - are the problems of success, the downside of doing well. The question with Charleston though, is how did it become such a success? When my uncle arrived in 1958, few would have predicted today's vitality as the city's inevitable future.

Back then, Charleston was a parochial place stratified along lines of race, class, origin and religion. The community was set in its ways; outsiders were regarded with suspicion. Today's Charleston is far different: open, welcoming and tolerant.

Some of that, I like to think, was my uncle's doing. Gregarious, joking and with a passion for education, he had a kind of street- level ecumenism that broke through social walls and reached out to everyone. He may have been a priest but those for whom he cared were of all religions. An extraordinary athlete with friends throughout the sports world, he once had played ball with Meadowlark Lemon of the Harlem Globetrotters. When the team came to town - and he put them up at the rectory - the message of racial outreach could not have been clearer.

While waiting for the funeral procession to begin, I spoke with Joseph Riley, now serving in his 29th year as Charleston's mayor. My uncle once taught Riley in high school; eventually they became close friends. One of the earliest of the "new urbanist" mayors, race figured prominently in his first campaign.

It wasn't only a matter of justice, he says, but also of the city's survival. Healthy cities thrive on what he calls "churn": their ability to attract talent from all over, to become magnets of learning, culture and, yes, even good eating. None of that would have been possible if Charleston had kept to its insular ways.

Neither Riley nor my uncle would (or could) claim sole credit for Charleston's transformation, of course. Still, their work - one in the civic sphere, the other clerical - shows us the virtues of politics and religion.

Both have their problems; sometimes, in fact, their failings overwhelm us.

Yet at their best - and my uncle's life is a testament to this - each also can be a powerful force of good.