Can Buddy Beat The Rap?

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On his first day in office in 1975, Cianci got a call saying monkeys from the dilapidated zoo had escaped onto I-95; in March 1999 the Roger Williams Park Zoo was named one of the nation's best by Travel & Leisure Family magazine. That's in part because Cianci mastered the art of federal grantsmanship and leveraged municipal bonds. "The biggest trick," he confides, "is to use other people's money."

During his six terms, the city that was once the joke of New England has made MONEY magazine's lists of both the best places to live and the best places to retire. National Geographic Traveler has called it "a place you can't help but like." Utne Reader deemed it one of America's 10 most enlightened towns. Swing ranked it the best place to be an artist, and Girlfriends called it one of the best places to be a lesbian. Cianci is particularly proud of a renovation that saved a Colonial Revival mansion called the Casino from demolition and restored it as a center for lavish public events. "It was a piece of crap in 1970," he says as he stands on the back veranda. "I actually toyed with making it a mayor's house, but I didn't have the balls."

If so, it was a rare moment of restraint for someone who contends that "smart mayors, I think, become risk takers." But Cianci is convinced his position is secure, at least with Providence voters. The mayor was leaving a family-outreach-center dinner when he happened upon one of the half-dozen or so politicians who may run against him. Cianci had left the 200 diners in hysterics with his jokes about a nun going to heaven and a "great-lookin' blond" who recently mistook him for a coat-check boy. The two men exchanged a quick, brusque handshake, but just out of earshot, Cianci muttered, "Try following that."