A TIME NO MORE

“On Thin Ice” is Lou

Scheinfeld’s heartfelt memoir
of an America gone, a world of
local spectacle and national
pride. Dubbed America’s
showplace between its birth in
1967 and much-lamented
death in 2009, The Spectrum
formed the city’s – and the
nation’s – prism, refracting a
people’s dreams, fears and
fantasies as sporting icons and
cultural heroes thronged the
ice, the stage and field of play.

THE INSIDE STORY

The Spectrum has one last
story to tell - how it came to
be, how it really was, and how
it ended. Lou Scheinfeld is the
one man standing capable of
telling this story of Ed Snider,
Jerry Wolman, Frank Rizzo,
Running a Big City Arena was No Kate Smith, The Broad Street
Bullies, Sinatra & the Philly
Game. Mob, Doctor J, Electric
Factory, Springsteen, Elvis,
Mick Jagger and more. It’s a
true story of impossible
origins, improbable triumph
and implacable memories.
Contents

1. Glory Daze Gone – The Spectrum is a Wreck

2. The Candy Store -- Dad’s Shop to the Big Top

3. Blood, Sweat & Cheers – Selling Hockey Philly-Style

4. A Dozen Jock Straps -- The 76ers Show some Balls

5. Wolman Vs. Snider – Cain without Abel

6. The Golden Ticket -- Box Office Shenanigans

7. The House that Rock Built! – Philly is Music Mecca

8. Rizzo and The Rolling Stones – Gimmee Shelter!

9. Old Blue Eyes and the .38 – The Mob Muscles in

10. In This Corner, Smokin’ Joe -- Boxing is a Knockout

11. God Bless Kate – Lady Luck fills the Cups

12. The Flyers Win the City! – We Walk Together Forever

13. PRISM Dishes it out – Pioneering Cable TV

14. The King’s Last Act – Curtains for Elvis

15. The Comeback Kid – Reunited. . . and it feels so good

16. Inside Ed Snider – My Life with The Silver Fox

17. Future Memories – Building a Museum

18. Epilogue – No regrets

ON THIN ICE
By Lou Scheinfeld
Excerpted from his forthcoming book titled “On Thin Ice.”
The following is copy righted and all rights are reserved, June 1, 2020. No portion of this may be reprinted,
transmitted or published without expressed written permission.

Chapter 5
Wolman vs. Snider

It’s said there are three sides to every story. This one has a fourth . . . mine.
I came out of it sore and groggy in a granting the Eagles “exclusive professional
room at Philly’s Einstein Hospital near Broad St. football rights” to play in Veterans Stadium,
and Olney Ave. following surgery in December, planned for the Eagles and Phillies in South
1963, for a meniscus I ripped playing Sunday Philadelphia, which was to open in 1971.
morning sandlot football. Wolman wrote in his 2010 book, “Jerry
And first thing I focus on is a grainy, Wolman: The World’s Richest Man,” that he was
black and white TV suspended from the ceiling. summoned to Tate’s City Hall office and
Channel 6 anchor Gunnar Back is introducing film blindsided with a new, concocted lease that not
of two guys I never heard of who just bought the only jacked up the rent but disaffirmed the
Philadelphia Eagles. “exclusive” pro football clause.
It was a shortly after JFK was shot and it What’s more, it directed that the Eagles
was the first time I laid eyes on this dynamic duo would play in a stadium to be built on stilts over
of Ed Snider and Jerry Wolman, sharp, young Pennsylvania Railroad tracks at 30th St. Station,
Washington D.C. guys who shocked local Philly not the South Philly site at Broad St. and Pattison
machers by snatching the team put up for sale by Ave.
a group of businessmen known as “The Hundred
Brothers.”
This investor group, which owned the
team from 1949-1963, was headed by local
trucking magnate James P. Clark and the
politically connected Philly Fire Chief Frank
McNamee, who also served as team president.
They had rounded up 100 Philadelphia backers
who forked over $3000 each to buy the team
from cash-strapped owner Alexis ‘Lex’ Thompson
for $250,000 and operating cash to make sure
it remained in the city.
Out of the hospital and back on the beat Mayor Tate, left. Wolman rips him at press conference.
covering City Hall for the Philadelphia Daily
News, I soon meet Jerry Wolman at a 1964 press Wolman said he was told by Tate and his
conference in the Eagles’ swank offices on the heavy-handed gang that he had no choice but to
ground floor of the Evening Bulletin Building at sign it on the spot because that’s the way it
30th and Market Streets. worked in Philly -- and he’d better get used to it.
Wolman was having a nasty dispute with They warned him that if he didn’t go along, the
Mayor James. H. J. Tate over a signed agreement city would pressure the University of
Pennsylvania to kick the Eagles out of their Wolman, boyish and charismatic, soon
current home at Franklin Field on Penn’s campus. introduced me to Ed Snider, 31, an astute, no-
Now, Wolman may have come from poor nonsense businessman and CPA who had moved
folks who owned a grocery store in struggling from Washington with his wife and four young
Shenandoah, PA, but he didn’t exactly just fall off kids to be Eagles’ executive vice president and
the back of a turnip truck. He was a savvy, treasurer, motivated by a reported seven percent
successful developer who, at age 36, was said to team ownership and carte blanche to run it.
be worth $36 million the day he bought the Snider and I immediately connected. He
Eagles. knew business. I knew Philly.
Digging into the story, I learned Tate
was courting a rival franchise from the budding
American Football League to share the new
stadium with the Eagles and Phillies. I also heard
Tate might personally benefit if that AFL
franchise wound up playing in the new stadium.
Tate and his cohorts thought they had
the young owner trapped, but Wolman ducked
the blitz, went out and bought Connie Mack
Stadium, nee Shibe Park, where the Eagles had
played before moving to Franklin Field.
Connie Mack Stadium was the long-time
home of the Phillies. Team owner Robert. R. M. As time passed, he and Wolman offered
Carpenter, an heir to the duPont family, had
unloaded the old ballpark about a year earlier to Bulletin building, with Eagles new HQ on ground floor.
New York real estate investors.
A seething Wolman said he left Tate’s me executive positions in their budding empire.
office, called New York and “in a ten-minute In short order, Wolman, a developer of
conversation,” bought the stadium for mega projects in and around Washington,
$575,000. announced a $100 million “City Within a City” for
Moving quickly, Wolman rounded up Camden, purchased Philly’s Yellow Cab Co.,
Carpenter, told him the Phillies could play there opened restaurants and clubs, helped launch NFL
as long as they wanted -- along with the Eagles Films and began construction on the John
until he and Carpenter could build their own Hancock skyscraper in Chicago.
stadium somewhere. But I loved the rush of chasing a good
Wolman called a press conference and story or nailing a corrupt politician. Being a
went public with Tate’s strong-arm tactics. reporter was my life’s dream. Where else could I
Outfoxed by Wolman and outed by my make a good guy or break a bad one -- and read
Daily News stories, Tate caved and dropped talk all about it in the morning.
of an AFL franchise—as well as the ill-advised I got into the newspaper business in
30th St. Station site. 1957, dropping out of Temple University’s
Wolman had won the Eagles with an School of Journalism in my senior year to support
offer of $5,505,000 easily outbidding other my wife and daughter and landed a job writing
bidders, which netted the “brothers”’ more than obituaries for the (Trenton NJ) Trentonian.
$50,000 each for their $3000 investment. I was in heaven, earning $75 a week and
The minimum bid had been set by the loving every minute. After a few months, they
owners at $4.5 Million and the few other promoted me to general assignment reporte,
applicants reportedly came in not much higher. then City Hall reporter and onto the city desk.
Asked why he bid so high, Wolman said simply, Over the next seven years, I worked at
“Because I fucking wanted to win!” the Doylestown Intelligencer in the seat of Bucks
County, PA, and at the Courier Post in Cherry Hill,
N.J. The work was exciting and fulfilling and it fire departments or on general news coverage
came easily to me. and wrote the stories.
In Doylestown, I had the honor of sitting Within six months I was assigned to the
a desk away from famed author James Michener, coveted daytime City Hall beat after a colleague
a newspaperman at heart, who lived nearby and left -- and I thrived. I loved this job and couldn’t
came in several days a week to bang out his next get enough. Breaking one big story after another,
best-seller book, “Hawaii.” my peers dubbed me as “Front Page Lou.”
At each of paper I advanced quickly but But two years into the City Hall beat I
was eager to move on to the big time. was ordered by crusty, old managing editor J.
I constantly pestered the Philly Inquirer, Ray Hunt to move inside as night city editor. It
Evening Bulletin and Daily News but got meant going back on the late shift with no pay
nowhere. increase and giving up all the key contacts I had
Then, I got an idea. cultivated around town.
The Bulletin, which moved to 30th Street I balked. Hunt said either take It -- or
from across from City Hall in 1954, was giving leave!
tours of its cavernous offices and printing plant. So, I made him an offer.
I took one of the tours and when we
passed the editorial department, ducked into a
men’s room, waited a few minutes, navigated a
sea of staff desks and found the office of city
editor Early Selby.
His door was open, and I could hear the
rat-a-tat of a newsman’s typewriter.
I poked my head in.
“Mr. Selby?”
He looked up.
“Who are you?”
“Uh, “My name’s Scheinfeld, and I would
love to work for you.”
“How’d you get in here?
I told him, he laughed, and invited me in. Hot Shot Lou, right, showing his copy to Bulletin and Inquirer
He asked about my experience, but said, colleagues in the City Hall press room.
“We don’t have any openings right now, but if we
I’d take the inside night job and work the
did, I’d hire you right now, just for figuring out
day shift at City Hall.
how to get in here. That’s the mark of a good
I was floored when Hunt said okay.
newsman.”
Even more surprisingly, it meant being
I could never get past the guard in the
paid for covering City Hall — and time-and-a-half
lobby of the Inquirer on Broad St. but made so
overtime for working the night shift. My pay
many trips to the Daily News offices in an old
ballooned from $14,000 ($111,000 in today’s
warehouse at 22nd and Arch Streets that city
money) to $22,000 ($176,000 today).
editor Bill Blitman knew me well.
One day, after doing the double shift for
“Kid,” he swore each time I popped in,
almost a year, my phone rang in the City Hall
“next opening, you’re it!”
Administration Reporters Room 212. It was
True to his word, Bill called me one day
Wolman.
and said to give notice at the Courier Post.
He said they were working on a big deal
I started at The Daily News in
and would I have lunch with Snider about
September, 1963, on the 11pm-7am “Lobster
something “that’s going to knock your socks off.”
Shift” on rewrite, meaning I took raw info over
I met Ed a few days later at Lou Mayo’s
the phone from our night reporters at police and
intimate Bellevue Court lounge behind the
Bellevue-Stratford Hotel where, over bloody helping run a major league hockey team—and a
Mary’s and shrimp cocktails, he told me they big city arena.
were applying for a franchise in the National It was a heady, exciting time, but things
Hockey League and would need to build and spun downhill fast!
operate a new arena if they got it. I watched from an uncomfortable front
“How’d you like to help run that?” he row seat as the Wolman-Snider friendship
asked. deteriorated into all-out war.
Whoa! How do you turn this down? Snider was running the Eagles,
“If you get the franchise, I’m on board.” honchoing the birth of the hockey team and
Sure enough, a few weeks later I get the getting the arena up and running.
call.
“We got it,” said Ed. “You in?”
“I’m in,” I said without hesitation.
How could you not be impressed with
these quicksilver guys?
They blow into town like Dodge City
gunslingers and dust off the movers and shakers
with style and class.
They had damn the torpedoes spirit and
a seemingly indestructible friendship. Damon
and Pythias I had labeled them in print.
One Philly columnist said Wolman
“sparkled like a chromed, electric guitar in a
window of 19th Century violins.”

"Big John" nears completion after Wolman went under.

Wolman was practically living on

commercial jets to Chicago where construction of
his $100 million John Hancock Tower was going
badly, due to a faulty foundation. John Hancock,
a conservative Boston insurance company,
Tate, left, Wolman, peacefully cross sticks at Spectrum wanted no part of the political mess roiling in
ground-breaking. Chicago and pulled its financing.
Much as I loved newspapers, this was a Jerry poured more than $20 million of
lifetime opportunity to create a hockey team and his own cash ($160 million in 2020) into ripping
build and run an arena. Taking a clean sheet of down several stories of steel superstructure and
paper and figuring how to make all of it work in redoing the concrete underpinning. Turned out
a non-hockey city was a challenge I just had to that the concrete wasn’t given enough time to
take. cure before steel beams were laid on it.
In April, 1966, I took the job of vice When he ran out of money Wolman
president of the yet unnamed “Hockey Team” began looking for funding here, there and
and of “The New Sports Arena.” In a short matter everywhere, reportedly eyeing Eagles revenues.
of time, this kid from a candy store in Word spread fast. Alarmed creditors soon were
Brewerytown would be sitting in a big office howling at the door,
 Snider was running the Eagles by day Earl was a warm, charming guy who
and working with our staff on the hockey and would sit next to Wolman or Snider at crucial
arena projects at night. Every weeknight he’d negotiations and whisper sage, calming advice
arrive at our 15th St. offices after 6pm to discuss when things got heated.
and strategize the status of things for four or five He was ruddily handsome, with a
hours. I called it “Countdown to Opening,” cherubic, dimpled face, an easy smile, floppy hair
created special memo paper and inspirational and eyebrows that arched mischievously.
signs. We’d have more meetings and conference He was a savvy strategist who helped
calls on weekends. arrange the 1970 merger of the NFL and
By now, Wolman knew he had to dump American Football League and well as the merger
everything to try to save his beloved Eagles and
frantically rainbowed from Vegas to Paris to
Switzerland, seeking that pot of gold to save his
empire.
It looked to Ed and I that Wolman,
admittedly exhausted and stressed, was
unraveling in a last-ditch effort to get funded,
reportedly dealing with shadowy characters in
Vegas, alleged African princes and finally an Arab
sheik purportedly dangling some $43 million for
a package of his assets, including the Spectrum
and Flyers.
Wolman asked Snider and others to give
back his gifts of equity in the team and arena so
he could package it all in the alleged Arab deal.
Earl Foreman: Blood’s thicker than water.
Wolman said the Arab absolutely wanted
the Flyers in the package. We heard the franchise of the 1976 NBA and ABA, in which the NBA
would be sold to a New York venture group to admitted the four most successful franchises:
possibly relocate it in Baltimore, the city chosen Denver Nuggets, New York Nets, Indiana Pacers
as first alternate by the NHL if any of the six and San Antonio Spurs.
selected expansion cities defaulted. He was an Army medic in Europe in
Other equity holders complied, but World War II and even had a stint as an FBI
Snider balked, as did Wolman’s friend, partner lawyer. Pretty decent credentials, I’d say.
and lawyer, Earl Foreman, who was married to This alleged Arab deal made no sense to
Ed’s older sister, Phyllis. Earl sided with Snider in us. We believed the Flyers conditional franchise
the dispute and the battle lines were drawn. legally could not be sold nor transferred. Who
Wolman was shocked that Foreman, his was this group? Who were these Arabs? Middle
longtime sidekick, didn’t back him. East brokers for some oil zillionaire? Scam
“Jerry,” Earle shrugged, “Eddie’s my artists? The whole shmegeggi smelled of sweat
brother-in-law.” and desperation.
I’ve got to say a few words here about Snider offered to buy his share of the
Earl Marin Foreman, who wasn’t readily known in Flyers from Wolman but said Jerry insisted the
Philly, but a giant in Washington D.C. legal circles hockey franchise had to be included. Eventually,
and a brilliant sportsman who held ownerships in Snider and Foreman exchanged their interests in
the NBA Baltimore Bullets, American Basketball the building for Wolman’s shares of the hockey
Association Virginia Squires (who drafted Julius team and Snider became the majority owner of
Erving), Eagles, Flyers, Spectrum, founded the the team.
Major Indoor Soccer League and owned the As early as 1964 Snider had become
Washington Whips soccer team. disillusioned when Wolman shockingly gave
much-maligned Eagles coach Joe Kuharich a 15-
year, $1 million contract and also made him unannounced and found Ed in the bathroom
general manager. shaving.
It was perceived by the press as petulant Snider looked up, startled to see Jerry in
and a smack in the face to fans and critics of the mirror.
Kuharich, some of whom hired a plane to fly a “What are you doing here? he said.
Wolman said he wanted to tell him in
person that he was firing form the Eagles.
Wolman publicly characterized Snider as
a traitor.
“Betray him? Hell,” Ed told me later in a
pained conversation. “I was being loyal to our
Flyers and Spectrum employees and to the city.”
“I wasn’t about to just dump everybody and see
Philadelphia lose the franchise.”
I admired both Jerry Wolman and Ed
The Contract. Wolman, right, Snider, middle, and Kuharich.
Snider and it saddened me to see what went
“Joe Must Go” banner over Franklin Field during down between these ideal opposites: Jerry, the
Eagles games. boyish, charismatic visionary; Ed, the focused,
“That hiring was idiotic,” Snider later driven businessman.
said. “He did it on a whim and told no one.” Through it all, I stayed friends with both,
Wolman said the nearly completed arena working with Ed every day, even writing a $1000
could stand on its own without a hockey team, check to a fund to help save Jerry’s Eagles. He
something that Ed and I felt would work about returned it, saying he appreciated it, but it
as well as the sinking Hancock. wouldn’t help. “Like spit in the ocean,” he said,
Today, that might work, but in 1967 the of helping his foundering $100 million empire.
big city arena concert business was nowhere. In Later, I heard that Wolman at first was
fact, in its first five years the Spectrum averaged unaware of the fund, started by friends in his
only about four concerts per year. From 1986 hometown of Shenandoah, and insisted that it be
through 1990, it zoomed to some two dozen closed, and donations returned.
concerts per year.
How sad is it that the Spectrum, with its
renowned concert sound, international rep and
millions of fervent fans, couldn’t have been
transformed into a music mecca. But, that’s a
story for another chapter -- namely Number 15
in this book, when I tried to save it from the
wrecking ball.
The hail Mary Arab deal was the end so
far as Snider was concerned. After flatly refusing
to include the Flyers in the package, things went
south.
On October 19, 1967, Wolman and
Snider had words in the Eagles offices and Snider
headed home to suburban Wynnewood in the
company’s limo to get ready for the Flyers
opener later that night at the Spectrum.
Wolman soon grabbed a cab and
headed to Snider’s house. He walked in Snider and Foreman at Franklin Field, 1966. Eagles
quarterback Jack Concannon looks on.
 “I couldn’t accept money from people The jubilance bothered me. I quietly left
who couldn’t really afford it,” he said. the table and, for some pointed reason, reached
In early 1969, Jerry told me he knew he in my pocket, paid off their tab and headed out
had to sell the Eagles. “I put you in for $25,000,” to 30th and Market.
he confided, “for being a mensch.” I arrived after midnight, just in time to
A few months later, on May 1, with debts hug Jerry wordlessly as he departed the Eagles
of over $85 million, and nowhere to turn, offices -- for the very last time. Neither of us were
creditors forced him to sell the team to trucking dry eyed.
heir Leonard Tose for $16,155,000. He paused on the sidewalk, drained and
beaten, took a final drag on his Lucky Strike and
Bogarted it into the street.
He looked back with a sad smile, slid
into a waiting car and vanished.
From that point, Wolman and Snider’s
fortunes veered in vastly different directions. Ed,
ultimately building one -- and Jerry unable to
rekindle his.
Jerry did make a few scores in real estate
but an attempt to buy back the Eagles fell
through in court with Tose denying he ever
offered such an arrangement.
Nearly 40 years later, in 2009, the Daily
News’ Stan Hochman interviewed Wolman and
Snider as The Spectrum neared demolition.
Flamboyant Leonard Tose gambled on the Eagles. Hochman quoted Wolman:
“I took him out of the gutter and he
After the banks and some 300 other
(fucked) me!”
creditors grabbed theirs, Wolman walked away
Was Wolman invited to the demolition?
from the table broke and broke. Ironically, 16
“Only if he’s inside the building,”
years later, the high living Tose was forced to sell
snapped Snider.
the Eagles to auto dealer Norman Braman to
“Grumpy old men,” Hochman called
satisfy more than $25 million in casino debts.
them.
After paying off all his creditors from the
Wolman
$65 million sale, Tose, an admitted gambling
published a book
addict and alcoholic, who once lost $5 million on
about his
a single roll at Harrah’s Casino in Atlantic City,
spectacular rise
frittered away his proceeds and in 2003, at age
and fall titled, “The
88, died penniless. Former Eagles coach Dick
World’s Richest
Vermiel and others had supported him in a room
Man,” in which he
at the Warwick Hotel at the end.
castigated Snider.
Snider owned seven percent of the
Ed wanted to strike
Eagles and Earl Foreman had 20 percent. Both
back and asked me
cashed out handsomely.
to underline any
My 25K? Never saw a dime.
reference for his lawyers to consider.
“Typical Wolman good-guy bullshit,”
I cautioned Ed not to respond because it
Snider said.
would only lead to the book getting more
I met Ed and Earl and at Lou Mayo’s
publicity and prolong the issue. He said he didn’t
hours after the settlement where they were
care. He was being hounded by the media to
celebrating their windfalls over a late supper and
comment on Wolman’s charges.
drinks.
 “Ed,” I advised, “Here’s your only
He went solely with that and things quieted
response,” and handed him a statement I had just
written: down.
The feud simmered until Wolman, again
“Jerry Wolman and I worked very closely pretty much broke, died in 2013 at age 86. Ed
together many years ago, and at one time passed away in 2016 at age 83 with Earl
following nine months later at age 92.
enjoyed a good relationship. Unfortunately, in
To the end, Wolman had felt Snider was
many partnerships, things don’t always work out a traitor.
Snider said Wolman bailed and the
and people move on. And that’s what happened
Flyers and Spectrum wouldn’t have happened if
with Jerry and me. he hadn’t picked up the pieces.
I’ve moved on and am not interested in Over time Wolman made his peace with
Earl Foreman
rehashing events that may or may not have But Ed would have none of it, never got
occurred more than four decades ago. over Wolman publicly dumping him.
“The sonuvabitch fired me on the Flyers’
I’m very proud to be spending my time opening day,” he said. “I was egotistically
and energy these days running a company that destroyed.”
I lived through the whole mess and saw
has created thousands and thousands of jobs
the toll it took on these memorable men.
and has brought happiness and excitement to They’re gone now -- and who’s to say
who’s wrong?
millions of fans and to be engaged in charitable
Maybe it’s just time to put it to lerest in
and civic causes that benefit the community.”
 peace.

-end Chapter 5-