Boston Common - Niche Media - A side of Boston that's anything but common.
Issue link: http://digital.greengale.com/i/174813
Boston's longestserving mayor, tom menino, gives a candid look back on his 20 years in office. ex t interv ew by rebecca knight | photography by eric levin hen one of the nuns at St. Thomas Aquinas, a now-shuttered parochial school in Jamaica Plain, asked a young Tom Menino what he wanted to be when he grew up, he thought for a moment. "I want to be an engineer and build bridges," he replied. The nun chided him. Menino was, at best, a mediocre student. "Thomas," she said sternly, "you have to be better at math if you want to build bridges." "Well, I am not an engineer today," says Menino when he recounts the story, his thick Boston accent on full display ("naht an engineeah"). "But I do build bridges." Early next year, after more than 20 years of helping build literal and metaphorical bridges throughout Boston, Mayor Menino will leave City Hall at the age of 71. His departure marks the end of an era for the city, a turning point that The Boston Globe likened to Ted Williams's retirement after his two-decade run at Fenway Park. Menino is the longest-serving mayor in Boston history, the only mayor a generation of Bostonians has ever known. To many he's a living symbol of The Hub, as Boston as baked beans, as cream pie, as the Sox, as—you get the drift. In some ways, though, Menino is an unlikely statesman. He is not a visionary or inspirational figure. He is not particularly intellectual. And he is a terrible public speaker: He talks too quickly, garbles his words, and—as is well documented—has a tendency toward malapropisms. ("We have to do something about youths conjugating on Boston Common," he once said.) Yet Menino has a natural knack for politics. He is the People's Mayor: an uncannily charismatic leader who built his career by W 120 bostoncommon-magazine.com 120-123_BC_F_Menino_LateFall13.indd 120 9/16/13 11:00 AM