Paul D'Ortona

Paul D'Ortona (December 29, 1903 – October 17, 1992) was a Democratic politician from Philadelphia who served as President of Philadelphia's City Council.

D'Ortona was born in Guastameroli, Abruzzo, Italy in 1903, the son of Giovanni and Maria D'Ortona. The family emigrated to the United States in 1913 and settled in South Philadelphia, where D'Ortona's father worked as a blacksmith. After leaving school at age 14, D'Ortona worked in a tailor's shop. He served in the United States Army from 1920 to 1923. In 1924, he married Anna Marie Trudel. After a brief career as a professional boxer—he fought one match in the flyweight division, a draw—he found more permanent work in the shoe manufacturing business.

He found work in state government during the Great Depression, working as a state hearing inspector from 1935 to 1939. After that, he worked briefly as a clerk in the city treasurer's office before being elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives as a Democrat in 1940. He was narrowly defeated for re-election in 1942, and left politics for a time, working in the stockroom of Snellenburg's department store.

D'Ortona moved back into city politics as a protégé of Democratic City Committee Chairman James A. Finnegan, and was elected magistrate in 1949.In 1951, after Philadelphia adopted a new city charter, he ran for an at-large seat on the reformed city council. He placed fifth among the Democrats in that race, but that was sufficient to win one of the maximum five at-large seats that any one party's nominees could win. In Council, he chaired the Public Safety Committee. In that capacity, D'Ortona sponsored a law banning the sale of switchblade knives in the city.

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