FOR BIG ADDRESSES like the State of the City, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino was known for repeatedly asking his speechwriters the same question: “Where is the home cooking?” That was code for the local issues that voters cared about, ranging from trash pickup to filling potholes.

On Tuesday night, home cooking was the main course inside Fenway’s MGM Music Hall, where Mayor Michelle Wu gave her second address, halfway through her term. She touted 7,000 potholes fixed last year, along with renovated pools in Dorchester and East Boston, and 100,000 feet of crosswalks repainted. City Hall became the first in Massachusetts to offer marriage certificates that do not require sex or gender identification on them. 

“The most important part of being mayor is making sure that the day-to-day needs of our residents are met,” Wu said after the speech. “It’s snow removal, trash pickup, keeping the lights on, and keeping our streets safe and clean, our neighborhoods beautiful for residents to live the fullest of their lives and call the city home.”

She also took a victory lap of sorts on some policy wins, pointing to the expansion of universal pre-kindergarten, permitted affordable housing, and the recently approved Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association contract, which she called “unlike any other in the city’s history” because of the discipline reforms that were baked into it. There are proposals to turn eight buildings in downtown Boston into housing through a new program converting office buildings to residential units.

The speech also touched on Boston Public Schools, which past mayors have struggled to turn around. Wu announced that the McCormack High School would partner with UMass Boston down the street, offering high school students access to college courses, and the deployment of a $20 million federal grant for 50 electric school buses. Ten capital BPS projects are underway, as many as in the last 40 years, according to Wu.

And starting February, on the first and second Sundays of every month, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of Science, and the Franklin Park Zoo, among other locations, will be free to Boston Public Schools students and family members. The initiative is a personal one for Wu, who recalled her mother taking her to the art museum when she was growing up in the Chicago area.

International affairs intruded on the speech. As she got underway, scattered groups of pro-Palestinian protesters in the audience stood up to chant, leaflet the hall, and unfurl banners saying “Boston Complicit in Genocide,” in a reference to the Israel-Gaza conflict. As police officers worked to clear the groups, Wu called their shouts “democracy at work” and moved on.

It was also a reelection speech. Wu’s friends and foes agree that she is running for another four-year term in 2025, dismissing a rumor, started last summer before making its way to the Boston Herald, that she would head to a Harvard University post.

As the year drew to a close, Wu’s campaign committee raised $200,000 in December, her biggest monthly haul since she was elected in November 2021. She started the new year with $1.3 million in cash on hand, and aside from rumblings about a potential bid by Josh Kraft, the New England Patriots Foundation president, no clear opponent on the horizon.

“We’re in a time of a lot of unpredictability and whether that’s conflict around the world or economic uncertainty, cities everywhere are really handling a lot,” Wu told reporters after the speech. She nodded to “partnerships” city officials have with Gov. Maura Healey and members of the Boston delegation at the State House, who attended the speech and sat in the front row. “We’ve had two years now building a team, delivering results, setting a vision, and now it’s full speed ahead on making it happen,” she said.