Editor’s Note: If you ever lived or parked your car in the city, there’s a good chance you agree with those who call Lew Blum is the Most Hated Man in Philadelphia. After reading the story below, you may consider pinning that title on a guy with another well-known name..
Jonathan Valania writes in Philadelphia Magazine
Up until September 22, 2015, it was Lew Blum’s world; we just parked in it.
From behind the steel-reinforced walls of his fortified bunker in West Philly, Blum lorded over a vast and lucrative towing empire that specializes in removing unauthorized vehicles from private parking space across the city. His name is a household word in Philadelphia, where upwards of 10,000 LEW BLUM TOWING signs hang in ubiquity on the walls adjacent to more than 3,000 private parking lots, spaces and garage doors, warding off would-be illegal parkers the way scarecrows ward off crows. When that fails, Blum’s wreckers tow away those who ignore the warning, at the behest of irked private-parking-space owners and lessees. Nothing enrages us more than taking away something that belongs to us, especially our cars, which in America is tantamount to stealing our eternal souls. Blum was good at it, so good that he became The Most Hated Man in Philadelphia in the court of public opinion. Lew doesn’t take it personally — it’s just one of the many occupational hazards of being a tow-truck-drivin’ man. Besides, somebody’s gotta be the villain in this movie.
Raised on the dog-eared mean streets of the Bottom in the middle of the 20th century, Blum was born into a burgeoning towing dynasty. Towing was the family business going back generations. His grandfather, Lew Smith, more or less invented tow-truck enforcement of private parking in this city. Blum’s uncle was George Smith — of George Smith Towing fame — and between the two of them, they split the city in half. Sure, there were other towing companies in town — Jimmy’s, Earl’s, Empire — but they mostly nibbled around the edges of Blum’s and Smith’s respective fiefdoms. And yeah, some towers ran their businesses like pirate ships, but that wasn’t Lew Blum’s problem. He’s been saying for years that the city should be singling out and cracking down on the bad actors.
Blum says that in the past two years, his $2 million towing empire has lost 80 percent of its value. He’s exhausted his life savings just trying to keep his head above water.
In recent years, getting your car out of Blum’s impoundment lot would set you back $200, and up until 2017, his wreckers were hooking 20 cars a day. He estimates the value of his business back then in excess of $2 million. But all that began to change on or about September 22, 2015. That was when now-indicted and theretofore all-powerful union boss Johnny Doc emerged from an undisclosed location to discover that his illegally parked car was “on the hook” of a wrecker from an unnamed towing company, as spelled out on page 118 of the 109-count federal indictment of Johnny “Doc” Dougherty, business manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 98, and Philadelphia City Councilman Bobby Henon. After telling the tow-truck driver who he was, Johnny Doc shelled out the requisite $200 to get his car off the hook. Further insult was added to injury when the tow-truck driver was unable to make change and Doc was shorted $10. Shortly thereafter, according to the indictment, Doc called Bobby Henon to vent and plot his revenge.
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