Rarely has the contrast in a tale of two cities been so stark. On June 12, in a private ceremony at the Arthur Ashe Center, Richmond Mayor Dwight C. Jones will give James Farrior the key to the city. Wednesday, Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown gave Terrell Owens a key to the city. Farrior was a star football player at Matoaca High School and the University of Virginia.

Richmond’s mayor is trying to calm an escalating war of words between the city and owners of the Eggleston Hotel over the collapse of the long-blighted landmark in Jackson Ward. Mayor Dwight C. Jones declined to respond in detail to a statement by the owners yesterday that they got no help from Richmond in financing the planned $1 million renovation of the building, which was renowned as a magnet for illustrious black entertainers and athletes during decades of racial segregation.

Combine the power of hope and the spirit of social justice, and there’s nothing you can’t accomplish, Mayor Dwight C. Jones told students at Richmond Community High School yesterday. Jones, the featured speaker during the school’s Black History Month program, offered the students some insight on life as the mayor but mostly stuck to a theme of the power—and necessity—of youthful ambition.

On his first full day as mayor, Dwight C. Jones put Richmond on notice that hard times are here to stay and that the path to renewed prosperity doesn’t necessarily go through City Hall.