Mayor Menino Has Passed Away.

Thomas M. Menino, the longest-serving mayor in Boston’s history, has died. He served as mayor from 1993 until 2013.

The Boston Globe reports:

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. (via)

I met him on several occasions and every time he gave me a handshake with one of his massive hands.  He started it all here in Boston proclaiming that the “car is no longer king.”  And pushed for the first of many bike lanes to come.  He might not have thought of himself as a visionary, but he had the guts to buck the trend and pushed cycling to the forefront as a valid urban transportation method.  Mayor Menino was a good guy, and good friend to cyclists, he will be sorely missed.

I can only hope his final days were pleasant and spent with friends and family.

Add to Reddit.

Tweet