A Mayor for the Ages

When former Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino passed away last Thursday, Boston lost its longest-serving chief executive, Harvard lost a partner, and the community lost a symbol of Boston’s cohesiveness, toughness, and spirit of renewal. With his uniqu  style of personal politics and his emphasis on Boston’s neighborhoods, Menino was not only “the mayors’ mayor,” as former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg called him, but was also a constant presence in every part of the city and in the lives of its residents. These qualities, combined with his commitment to banish the racial polarization that still haunted the city he inherited in 1993, will ensure that history will remember him as one of urban America’s great public servants.

Anecdotes illustrating Mayor Menino’s commitment to the city he led for an unprecedented two decades are numerous. The Boston Herald highlighted Menino’s grit in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings, when the mayor checked himself out of the hospital despite a broken leg, and attended the next day’ s memorial service “in obvious pain” in order to deliver his tribute to the victims and to the city.

The Boston Globe focused on the sense of justice that defined Menino’s successes in urban renewal. Mayor Menino was always a staunch opponent of discrimination. He consistently led development of low-income, black and Latino sections of the city, and was an early supporter of LGBTQ rights.

Most fundamentally, Mayor Menino was a creature of Boston’s distinctive neighborhoods. His reputation as the “urban mechanic,” most at home with street-level issues, may have had certain negative connotations of small-mindedness or lack of vision. But to any Bostonian who lived during his mayoralty, Menino embodied what a politician should be. That more than half of Boston’s residents recalled meeting him is a testament to the Mayor’s commitment to all his constituents.

The mayor’s commitment to neighborhoods was also the basis of Harvard’s relationship with the mayor. This relationship was not always warm; Menino was rightfully indignant when he learned, in 1998, that Harvard had anonymously been buying up land in Allston. But he and former University President Lawrence H. Summers renewed the partnership between town and University; he and President Drew G. Faust then maintained and expanded that partnership through the difficult days of the recession. Harvard’s ongoing development of community programs in Allston, its strong presence in the Longwood Medical Area, and its creation of fellowship programs between the Law School, the Business School, and Boston’s government are a testament to the strength of the relationship that grew under Menino’s guidance. Both city and university are better for his leadership.

Perhaps a classic machine politician, Menino may have exhibited some of the flaws that go along with that model. As the Globe noted, “he favored certain developers,” took a personal interest in almost every construction project, and often banished enemies “to the political wilderness.”  But none of these criticisms overshadow Menino’s overwhelmingly positive legacy.

Neither the greatest of public speakers nor the most sweeping of ideologues, Mayor Menino rather displayed an incredible human touch. The enormous care with which he carried out his work on behalf of the people of Boston allowed him to oversee one of America’s great urban renewals. He will rightfully remain a beloved figure in the city, at Harvard, and beyond, and will be sorely missed.