Thomas Menino dies at 71; Boston’s longest-serving mayor

Thomas Menino, whose folksy manner and verbal gaffes belied his shrewd political tactics to govern as Boston’s longest-serving mayor and one of its most beloved, died Thursday. He was 71.

His death was announced by a family spokeswoman.

Menino was diagnosed with advanced cancer in February, shortly after leaving office, and announced Oct. 23 that he was suspending treatment and a book tour so he could spend more time with family and friends.

First elected in 1993, Menino built a formidable political machine that ended decades of Irish domination of city politics, at least temporarily. He won 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,” Menino, a Democrat, told an overflow crowd at Boston’s historic 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 people and injuring more than 260. Menino, who had undergone surgery on a broken leg just two days earlier, checked himself out of the hospital to help lead his shaken city through the crisis.

At an interfaith service three days after the bombings, 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.

He was in an SUV in nearby Watertown at the end of a daylong manhunt when Police Commissioner Edward Davis informed him that the surviving bombing suspect had been captured. Menino’s tweet: “We got him.”

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, rather than an albatross.

He often mangled or mixed up the names of Boston sports heroes — once famously confusing former New England Patriots kicker and Super Bowl hero Adam Vinatieri with ex-Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek.

But while such mistakes might sink other politicians in a sports-crazed city, they only seemed to reinforce Menino’s affable personality and ability to connect with the residents he served.

“I’m Tom Menino. I’m not a fancy talker, but I get things done,” he said in his first TV ad.

Thomas Michael Menino was born Dec. 27, 1942, in the city’s Hyde Park neighborhood. A former insurance salesman, he caught the political bug while working as a legislative aide to state Sen. Joseph Timilty. He was first elected as a district city councilor in 1984.

Menino became the council’s president in 1993 and was elevated to mayor when then-mayor Raymond Flynn was named U.S. ambassador to the Vatican. While that prompted some to initially chide Menino as an “accidental mayor,” he quickly proved his own political mettle, winning a four-year term later that year.

He never sought nor showed interest in running for higher office. Mayor, it seemed, was the only political job to which he aspired.

Menino’s health was often a concern, and he was admitted to the hospital several times while in office. He suffered a variety of ailments, including Crohn’s disease, a compression fracture in his spine and Type 2 diabetes, and had surgery to remove a rare sarcoma on his back.

In March, Menino revealed he was battling an advanced form of cancer that had spread to his liver and lymph nodes. Doctors said they were unable to pinpoint where the cancer originated.

Menino is survived by his wife, Angela; his children Susan and Thomas Jr., a Boston police officer; and six grandchildren.

news.obits@latimes.com

Salsberg writes for the Associated Press.