Why is mayor menino

The focus on Menino so often narrows to the already successful mayor who governed his last two terms as a living legend. Yet, four experiences that helped lead to his improbable rise tell the story of a gifted leader.

The White-Timilty battles, the fiercest the city will ever know, unfolded in the middle of busing and a depressed economy that stretched Boston to a breaking point. Menino entered office with an expert knowledge of the whole city and the political dynamics that shaped each neighborhood.

His political instincts enabled much of his success, and, truth be told, he was a political prodigy who developed one of the best political minds in the country. Second , a stint at the Boston Redevelopment Authority in the s gave Menino great insight into the development process, the role of the business community and the inherent tension with neighborhoods. Prior to Menino, you were either a downtown mayor or a neighborhood mayor.

To his credit, Menino was both, and he became the first mayor to preside over a development boom while avoiding major pushback in the neighborhoods. This was no accident. As a champion for Boston schools, Menino became the advocate in chief for its students. He transformed Boston Public Schools into a celebrated district — earning recognition from the Broad Foundation as the most improved urban school district in the country in He was a regular presence at every school, hosted an annual awards ceremony for star students and met each year with the graduating valedictorians.

To some the gestures may have seemed minor, but to the children of Boston they were reminders that Mayor Menino, the Mayor of their generation, was their ally and friend. Early in his tenure, he was called — somewhat disparagingly — the urban mechanic. It was a mantle he wore proudly. Menino worked hard to get trees planted, potholes filled, garbage cleared and street lights fixed. En route to the office each day he called subordinates to report on what needed fixing or sprucing up: a pothole here, a broken street light there, an abandoned car that needed towing, a neighborhood park in need of mowing.

Except for his ever-present finely tailored suits, Mr. Menino told the Globe in July , in his fifth-floor City Hall office.

This job, my legacy, is about the people. For two decades, until his final December in office, Mr. Menino spent Christmas Eve touring the streets of the Bowdoin-Geneva neighborhood, initially on foot and later by SUV when his health declined. They always held providing support and assistance for people in need as a priority.

Some criticized Mr. Graduation rates remained comparatively flat through much of his tenure, only rising in recent years, and city schools also experienced persistent racial achievement gaps. Still, he appointed two longstanding Boston public schools superintendents, providing much needed stability for a system that was shaken by the busing crisis and an extended period of short-term superintendents. Beginning in , Thomas Payzant served nearly 11 years.

Carol Johnson was in the job six years until retiring last year. No stranger to the academic challenges children face, Mr. Menino was a C student at St. Only after being elected to the City Council in did Mr. He graduated at 45, through a program that gave him a chunk of credits for serving as a city councilor. Born Dec. Menino wrote. It was his way of showing respect. That was my first lesson in politics. The Meninos lived on the first floor of a two-family house on Hyde Park Avenue and his paternal grandparents, immigrants from a village in southern Italy, lived upstairs.

The family owned an apartment building next door, where new immigrants cycled through every few years until they saved enough for a place of their own.

Fluent in Italian, Mr. Share your memories of Tom Menino, or messages for his family. Teachers tended to ignore those not at the top of the class. That indifference stayed with him, and once he was mayor, Mr.

Menino insisted on handing out awards to more than just the students who fared best on tests, though he conceded that his early parochial school education had at least one advantage. In his memoir, Mr. I hung his portrait behind my desk at City Hall. A plain-spoken man of the people.

The public library was his college. The public itself was Mr. He once estimated that he owned about ties, 75 to 80 shirts, numerous suits, and several blazers. Working for Metropolitan Life, meanwhile, meant he had a respectable job when he met Angela Faletra as they played tennis on adjoining courts in Hyde Park one day and her errant shots kept angling his way.

Their first date was that night. No, I reply. They married in , a few years after that first meeting. Menino added in the same interview. She could have a driver, and somebody to clean the house.

He was never seriously challenged in four subsequent re-election bids, a two-decade period in which the city he governed slowly grew younger and more diverse. Traditional urban ethnic enclaves in Boston were beginning to give way to a mix of new immigrants and younger professionals. Menino was also among the first big-city mayors to see the opportunities that technology afforded local governments to help solve recurring problems.

He set up an office that developed a pioneering smartphone app for residents to report potholes and other apps to report graffiti and other nuisances. He never sought nor showed interest in running for higher office. Mayor, it seemed, was the only political job to which he aspired. That would not, however, stop him from being at the forefront of major national issues. In , his administration began videotaping the court appearances of men arrested for soliciting prostitutes, promising to show on its cable TV station the arraignments of those convicted.

In , he underwent surgery to remove a rare sarcoma on his back. He spent six weeks in the hospital in for a series of ailments, including a respiratory infection. While he was in the hospital, he suffered a compression fracture in his spine and was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.