It's easy to stand tall when you're 6-foot-6. But it isn't always easy to act tall. Sam Zoll, who died this week at 76, acted tall all his life.
He acted tall when he took a paper route when he was 8 years old to help support the family, then kept it for 15 years. Legend has it he even delivered papers the day he graduated from college because that was his job.
Sam Zoll acted tall when he worked his way through law school while teaching full-time in Danvers.
He acted tall when he was elected to the Salem City Council in 1957 at age 23, its youngest member ever, and became a state representative seven years later.
Sam Zoll acted tall when, shortly after becoming mayor in 1970 he forced the resignation of the Salem Redevelopment Authority (SRA) and reversed the scorched-earth urban renewal policy of the former mayor. When Zoll took office plans were on the drawing board to demolish dozens of the downtown's beautiful buildings and replace then with a K-Mart surrounded by acres of parking.
Historic downtown Salem was on its way to becoming a competitor of the Northshore Shopping Center and Liberty Tree Mall. But how many people would have driven past the Peabody and Danvers malls, just off the highway, to wend their way to downtown Salem to shop? Salem nearly became a ghost town when the malls opened, but, to paraphrase Joni Mitchell, to tear down paradise and put up a parking lot (lots of them), would have completed the job.
Sam Zoll acted tall when he reclaimed Winter Island from the federal government. In 1971 the Department of Defense announced plans to turn Winter Island into a reserve training center. The property had been deeded to the federal government in 1790 to protect Salem from foreign invaders. The feds built Fort Pickering and a Coast Guard station there, then abandoned it.
The mayor and his legal department did some research and discovered a clause in the deed that allowed the city to reclaim Winter Island if the federal government did not make use of it.
Did Sam Zoll write a polite letter to the feds, seeking their co-operation in returning the island? He did not. The mayor formed a posse of city officials, including the city solicitor and a few police officers, and marched to Winter Island, reclaiming it for the City of Salem. The feds looked the other way.
One of the key figures in Mayor Zoll's administration was attorney William Tinti. A Springfield native who relocated in Salem because he liked the feel of it, Tinti became chairman of the SRA and later city solicitor under Zoll's successor.
Tinti remembers Zoll as, "one of the smartest guys I ever met. And he had the innate ability to motivate people because he connected with them. When Sam talked to someone, he or she was the only person in the room.
"And unlike many politicians then and now, Sam was fearless. If he believed in something, he did it. He didn't care if the stepped on toes."
Sam Zoll was mayor of Salem for three short years before he was appointed to the bench by then Gov. Francis Sargent. But his accomplishments are legend.
"Collins (Mayor Francis X, Collins) hadn't spent a dime in 20 years," Tinti recalled.
There was a rusting oil storage facility where Pickering Wharf is today. Mayor Zoll negotiated its purchase by the city, which opened up Salem's now magnificent waterfront.
He laid plans for a much-needed new high school.
He gave birth to the Shaughnessy-Kaplan Rehabilitation Hospital.
Again and again and again, Sam Zoll acted tall.
Politicians are natural dreamers. They go into the business wanting to make a difference.
Most of them don't. Sam Zoll did.
In three short years he turned a rudderless, drifting city around, laying the groundwork for the picturesque tourist attraction, lively college town and bustling legal center Salem is today.
Tinti says Zoll was "Salem's greatest mayor."
Early in their political careers the lives of Zoll and former congressman Mike Harrington paralleled.
Zoll delivered newspapers, became mayor and later presided over the state's district court system. Harrington drove a beer delivery truck summers to help work his way through Harvard College, served with Zoll on the Salem City Council and later went to Congress.
Harrington recalls that he and Zoll resigned from the Legislature on the same day in 1969 after the former was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from the 6th District and Sam won the corner office at Salem City Hall.
"Sam Zoll brought Salem to life again after 20 years of comfortable and inexpensive drift," Harrington said.
He credits Zoll's "proactive use of the executive branch" in a city "fortunate to have a strong-mayor form of government. He moved history rather than let it move him."
And, Harrington said, "Sam Zoll was singularly the most popular political figure in the history of the city. And he stayed that way. If Sam had run for mayor 20 years later, he would have been elected by a landslide."
Zoll smiled easily. He loved to walk around his city and bike up and down Essex County. When he walked, he most always wore a little cap. They're called ivy caps, worn originally by upper-class English gentlemen and later made popular by golfers. Sam's long black winter overcoat and ivy cap made him an easily recognizable figure around town.
No matter how busy, Zoll always had time to pass the time of day with the high and the humble he met on his travels.
Everyone was important to Sam Zoll and that was another secret of his success.
When he was mayor, Zoll would take lunch-time strolls downtown. Later, when he was chief justice of the district courts, he walked every day from his home to his office in the Holyoke building on Norman Street.
Home was a few blocks away on historic Chestnut Street, where the Salem upper crust resides. You could tell that the newsboy from North Salem was quietly proud that he had made it to that part of town.
Was Sam Zoll Salem's greatest mayor, as Tinti states? No doubt he would have blushed if confronted with that accolade. But if success is measured by achievement, who else might contend for that honor?
• • •
Longtime North Shore political columnist Howard Iverson lives in North Andover. Now retired, he covered Sam Zoll's rise to political prominence while a reporter for the Salem Evening News in the 1960s. He can be contacted at HLIverson@aol.com.
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