Boston Mayor Tom Menino Dead at 71
Former Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, the longest-serving mayor in the city's history, has died at age 71.
Menino
was diagnosed with advanced cancer about a month after leaving office
in January. Spokesperson Dot Joyce confirmed his death in a statement
Thursday:
"At
just after 9 a.m. this morning, the Honorable Thomas M. Menino passed
into eternal rest after a courageous batter with cancer. He was
surrounded by his devoted wife Angela, loving family and friends."
Menino left office after 20 years with an approval rating hovering around 80 percent.
He
was first elected in 1993 and built a formidable political machine that
ended decades of Irish domination of city politics, at least
temporarily. He won re-election four times. He was the city's first
Italian-American mayor and served in the office for more than 20 years
before a series of health problems forced him, reluctantly, to eschew a
bid for a sixth term.
"I
can run, I can win and I can lead, but not in the neighborhoods all the
time as I like," Menino, a Democrat, told an overflow crowd at Boston's
historic Faneuil Hall on March 28, 2013.
Less
than three weeks after that announcement, two bombs exploded at the
finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring
more than 260. Menino, who had undergone surgery on a broken leg just
two days earlier, checked himself out of a hospital to help lead his
shaken city through the crisis.
At
an interfaith service three days after the bombings, Menino, in a
symbolic act of personal defiance, painfully pulled himself to his feet
from his wheelchair to declare that no act of violence could break
Boston's spirit.
He
was in an SUV in nearby Watertown at the end of a daylong manhunt when
Police Commissioner Edward Davis informed him that the surviving bombing
suspect had been captured. Menino's tweet: "We got him."
Menino
was anything but a smooth public speaker and was prone to verbal
gaffes. He was widely quoted describing Boston's notorious parking
shortage as "an Alcatraz" around his neck, rather than an albatross.
He
often mangled or mixed up the names of Boston sports heroes - once
famously confusing former New England Patriots kicker and Super Bowl
hero Adam Vinatieri with ex-Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek. But while
such mistakes might sink other politicians in a sports-crazed city, they
only seemed to reinforce his affable personality and ability to connect
with the residents he served.
"I'm Tom Menino. I'm not a fancy talker, but I get things done," he said in his first TV ad.
Thomas
Michael Menino was born on Dec. 27, 1942, in the city's Hyde Park
neighborhood. A former insurance salesman, he caught the political bug
while working as a legislative aide to state Sen. Joseph Timilty. He
first earned elective office as a district city councilor in 1984.
Menino
became the council's president in 1993 and was automatically elevated
to mayor when then-mayor Raymond Flynn was named U.S. ambassador to the
Vatican. While that prompted some to initially chide Menino as an
"accidental mayor," he quickly proved his own political mettle, winning a
four-year term later that year.
He
never sought nor showed interest in running for higher office. Mayor,
it seemed, was the only political job to which he aspired.
Menino
was admitted to the hospital several times while in office. In 2003, he
underwent surgery to remove a rare sarcoma on his back. The following
year, his doctors confirmed he had been diagnosed with Crohn's disease, a
type of inflammatory bowel disease.
He
spent six weeks in the hospital in 2012 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. In May 2013, he was back in the hospital for surgery for an
enlarged prostate.
Menino
left City Hall on his final day in office Jan. 6 to thunderous applause
from city workers. Later, he tweeted: "Thank you Boston. It has been
the honor and thrill of a lifetime to be your Mayor. Be as good to each
other as you have been to me."
In
March 2014, Menino revealed in an interview with The Boston Globe he
was battling an advanced form of cancer that had spread to his liver and
lymph nodes. Doctors said they were unable to pinpoint where the cancer
originated.
In
a statement announcing he was stopping treatment to devote himself to
his loved ones, Menino said he was "hopeful and optimistic that one day
the talented researchers, doctors and medical professionals in this city
will find a cure for this awful disease."
Menino leaves behind his wife Angela, his children Susan and Thomas Jr., a Boston police officer, and six grandchildren.
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