Rest in Peace, Joanie K

Rest in Peace, Joanie K.

Philadelphia is one indelible character poorer with the passing Thursday of former Northeast Philadelphia Councilwoman Joan Krajewski. She was 79.

Krajewski served the Sixth District for a mere 32 years, retiring in 2011. She was the queen of the Dining Car Diner. The Northeast, too.

Krajewski possessed the sandpaper growl of one of Marge Simpson's sisters.

The character, too. Feisty doesn't begin to do her justice.

Krajewski was one of the indelible Boom-Boom Sisters, along with the late Ann Land, so named by the Inquirer's Steve Lopez and immortalized in this vintage column.

She had a scowl that could slice deli meat, and a smile that warmed pie.

In 1980, Krajewski made local political history, of a sort, getting into a fistfight with former election empress Marge Tartaglione -- another tough broad -- in the bathroom of Masters Restaurant on Bustleton, the language spewed unprintable here.

If only folks had charged admission, a fortune might have been raised.

We will not see her likes again.

--Karen Heller