Tom Menino is being remembered today as a mayor of the neighborhoods — someone who liked talking to ordinary people from Roxbury and East Boston as much as bigwigs from Beacon Hill or the Back Bay, and who took their ideas just as seriously.
So, it’s only fitting that on Monday, his funeral procession ranged far and wide through the city he ran for two decades. Among its destinations: the Mattapan branch of the Boston Public Library, near Boston’s border with Milton.
That library is one small piece of Tom Menino’s story. The gleaming structure opened five years ago, in a neighborhood that’s struggled with violence and blight. This morning, as the mayor’s funeral procession approached, it was a gathering point.
Lizzie Keen was one of the first people here. She called Mayor Menino a few years ago, after a contractor promised to fix her heating system—but took her money instead.
Keen recalls phoning Mayor Menino’s office to ask for help. Soon thereafter, city workers visited her apartment. They fixed her heating system, and give Keen and her elderly mother precious heat for a tough winter.
“He was a nice, nice person,” Keen said. “Mayor Menino’s office stepped in and heard my prayer.”
That same sense of personal connection — and gratitude — brought Marilyn McLean to Mattapan from her home in Jamaica Plain.
“I’ve always had a great affection for him,” McLean said of Menino.
McLane used to work at the BPL’s central library in Copley Square, where she curated the patent collection. After flooding ravaged the library’s collections in 1998, she met Menino firsthand, and was deeply impressed.
“It was devastating to the people that worked there,” McLean said of the flooding. “A lot of politicians would have met with the higher-ups…. He walked around and talked to everybody that worked there and said, ‘How has this affected you?’”
As Menino’s funeral procession wound its way south, from the Parkman House to Fenway Park to Dudley Square, the crowd in Mattapan continued to grow. And the stories kept coming.
“I have a son who’s very shy,” said Beliza Moriarty, who was waiting in front of the library with her 2-year-old daughter. “And I told [Mayor Menino], ‘Oh, my son really wants to meet you, but he’s very shy.’ He just took him and talked to him in a very loving way.
“He showed so much interest,” Moriarty added. “It really inspired children, to know the mayor of this big city really will take the time to talk to you.”
For some, it was a chance to reflect on a legacy they helped Menino build. Jim Clark, who was waiting on Blue Hill Avenue in a bright green Celtics jacket, was appointed by the mayor to Boston’s zoning board two decades ago.
“I’ve seen a lot happen in the last 20 years in Boston, and it’s all been for the best,” Clark said, citing the growth of South Boston’s waterfront as a particular point of pride.
Clark met Menino before he became mayor, when he worked at the Boston Redevelopment Authority with Clark’s wife. Asked how Menino changed from then until the end of his mayoralty, Clark’s answer was simple: he didn’t.
“Funny thing—he really never changed his personality,” Clark said. “He wasn’t ‘Mayor Menino’—he was Menino. Tom Menino is a good-hearted person who loved the city, loved the people.”
Finally, at 11:44 AM, the procession bearing Menino’s casket to Hyde Park came south down Blue Hill Avenue. As it approached, the crowd began to cheer.
Then, after a few seconds later, the procession was past, enroute to Roslindale Square and Menino’s funeral in Hyde Park. The crowd dispersed, carrying away bright-green “Thank you Mayor Menino” signs. Tom Menino’s final visit to Mattapan was over.
