Heard in the Hall

Baltimore's tourism office probably didn't come courting.

But Mayor Nutter did, and so it was Philadelphia's City Hall that was home tonight to a screening of The Wire's final episode.

It was easy to see why Baltimore might not have had such keen interest, given the storyline of despair among the poor; the mayor's decision to keep hush-hush news that a purported serial killer who murders homeless men didn't really exist; successful efforts to blackmail the police chief who resigned after refusing to play with numbers to make the homicide count drop.

It's stuff that really makes a city shine, huh?

Well, maybe not in Baltimore.

But in Philadephia, the night started with a 7 p.m. popcorn-and-wine reception inside Conversation Hall. Some of the usual suspects were there, including most of the mayor's Cabinet and several department heads (including at least two who admitted they were about to watch their first Wire episode).

But it was unusual suspects who mostly filled the room - including nine of the Wire's stars.

Omar. Bunk. Dookey. Fletcher. Gus (a Philadelphia native).

They were all there.

So was Sgt. Carver. Detectives Carver, Holley and Freeman. Councilman Grey.

Standing in various corners of the room shaking hands and smiling for photos, they eventually walked a few dozen feet away into the mayor's Reception Room, where the 93-minute episode got underway about 8:30 p.m.

Nutter, sitting in the first row next to Baltimore Sun City Editor Gus Haines (Clark Johnson in real life), bobbed his head enthusiastically as the show's theme song came on. It was finally starting.

All in all, the night was one of the mayor's greatest moments yet, he said. "Right up there, in a different way comparable to the open house," he said, that he held in City Hall after his inauguration.

The writing was so real, he said, about a shrinking city budget, a troubled police department, the political sharkfest and, oh, what happens when an elected official has his eyes set on another office.

Not Nutter, though. "I only have eyes on one office. It's around the corner."