Thomas Michael Menino, who insisted a mayor
doesn’t need a grand vision to lead, then went on to shepherd Boston’s
economy and shape the skyline and the very identity of the city he loved
through an unprecedented five consecutive terms in City Hall, died
Thursday. He was 71 and was diagnosed with advanced cancer not long
after leaving office at the beginning of this year.
“Visionaries
don’t get things done,” he once said, crisply separating himself from
politicians who gaze at distant horizons and imagine what might be.
Leaving to others the lofty rhetoric of Boston as the Athens of America,
he took a decidedly ground-level view of the city on a hill, earning
himself a nickname for his intense focus on the nuts and bolts of
everyday life: the urban mechanic.
An old-school politician whose smarts owed
more to the streets than the college classroom, Mr. Menino nonetheless
helped turn Boston into a hub of 21st-century innovation, recruiting
high-tech companies to the sprawling South Boston waterfront one minute,
then cutting the ribbon at a neighborhood burrito shop the next.
“No
man possessed a greater love for our city, and his dedicated life in
service to Boston and her people changed the face of the city,” said his
successor, Mayor Martin J. Walsh.
“With
sheer determination and unmatched work ethic,” Walsh said, Mr. Menino
“put us on the world stage as a national leader in health care,
education, innovation, and the nitty-gritty of executing basic city
services.”
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