Boston Mayor Tom Menino in 2008. (Photo from City of Boston archives)

MAYOR TOM MENINO, James Rooney, then the executive director of the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, and I rode the escalator of the newly opened facility on an early visit to the convention in 2004. Rooney provided an upbeat report to Menino on its progress, and the mayor basked in the early signs of success. 

Not bad, he seemed to be saying as his powerful hands gestured to the impressive scene in front on him.

At that moment, the mayor turned to me with a question. “What was it, they said this would be?” he asked, motioning to the crowds amid the freshly constructed surroundings. “What do you mean, mayor?” I answered, not knowing where the question was going. He said, “You know, the white, the white elephant…”  

It had been axiomatic in that era before its opening to deride the convention center as a bloated, expensive megaproject. I quickly understood where he was going with the comment. After all, only a few years earlier I had written my own piece in the now-defunct Boston Phoenix criticizing the project along similar grounds.  

“Yes, mayor, a white elephant. They were all wrong on that one, including me. You were right,” I said. 

Now, as members of his family, old supporters, loyal former staffers, and state and city leaders prepare to gather at the convention center to unveil its new name, the Thomas Michael Menino Convention & Exhibition Center, the proof is in the pudding.  

Menino’s steadfast commitment to the convention center stands as an unparalleled success in the history of the city. The lifelong Hyde Park resident, who for years was vexed by smoother-talking critics with prestigious pedigrees, will have his place in history cemented. 

Menino championed the idea that the construction of the convention center would spark the growth of an entirely new neighborhood – one that would draw international business, company headquarters, and vibrant places to live, work, and gather. While skeptics scoffed, he held the line – and proved the doubters wrong.  

While the convention center and the Seaport (including the portion we now know as the Innovation District) comprise part of Menino’s legacy, they are by no means the only part. If anything, the center of his focus lay in the neighborhoods where the city’s residents lived.  

While, by now, his tireless focus on city services is part of the common Menino lore (and, yes, it’s absolutely true that he would place calls to City Hall to urge staff to fix the plantings, say, on Columbia Road on his way into the city), imagination and vision played an important role here too. 

While still a city councilor, Menino participated in events sponsored by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Through the National Trust, he learned about the Main Street program, which at that time was designed to help rural small towns preserve their historic identity. Menino thought to employ this program in city neighborhoods. The first urban Main Street was in Roslindale Village, a concept since emulated throughout Boston and in other American cities. The use of the program is thought to have been essential in preserving and promoting business in these neighborhoods, which it, in turn, helped revitalize.  

Perhaps Menino’s most significant legacy lay in his deep connection with the people of Boston. By 2014, a Boston Globe poll found that more than 57 percent of city residents had actually met him.  

Menino remained relentlessly focused on connecting with residents. He and his staff had to devise a litany of opportunities to make this happen: coffee hours in parks, new homeowner gatherings at neighborhood eateries, and meet-and-greets at farmers’ markets.  

Perhaps the most time-consuming but rewarding of these was the school awards. Every spring, the mayor’s office scheduled the school awards at Faneuil Hall. Every school had its allotted time, and each class had two winners: an academic awardee and a spirit honoree. Each of those awardees – and their families – posed for a photo with the mayor in turn. Those two hours were off-limits, and I was not permitted to interrupt him with media inquiries during that time, though I tried. 

This was more than politics. This was Menino’s way of showing the school staff, and most importantly, the students, that they mattered. 

I’m sure some of these honorees will be among the more than 700 attendees who will be at the convention center to pay tribute one last time to the man who led Boston for two decades, to show him and his family that he mattered too. 

Seth Gitell served as press secretary to Mayor Tom Menino from 2003 to 2006.