Thomas Menino, Boston's longest-serving mayor, dies
BOSTON - Thomas Menino, 71, Boston's longest-serving mayor, whose mumbling and occasional bumbling belied his political ingenuity and endeared him to a scrappy city whose very skyline he helped reshape, died Thursday.
BOSTON - Thomas Menino, 71, Boston's longest-serving mayor, whose mumbling and occasional bumbling belied his political ingenuity and endeared him to a scrappy city whose very skyline he helped reshape, died Thursday.
Mr. Menino died in the company of family and friends, spokeswoman Dot Joyce said. He had been diagnosed with advanced cancer in February, shortly after leaving office, and announced a week ago he was suspending treatment and a book tour so he could spend more time with family and friends.
First elected in 1993, Mr. Menino built a formidable political machine that ended decades of Irish domination of city politics, winning reelection 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," Mr. Menino, a Democrat, told an overflow crowd at Boston's 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 and injuring more than 260. Mr. 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, Mr. 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.
Tributes to Mr. Menino poured in from around the country Thursday, with President Obama calling him "bold, big-hearted, and Boston strong."
Mr. 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.
"I'm Tom Menino," he said in his first TV ad. "I'm not a fancy talker, but I get things done."