Governing’s Zach Patton shadows Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino and gives the rundown in a piece entitled, The Boss of Boston, that appears in the January edition. The article contains several references to the Mayor’s favorite (and not) places in the North End. Below are three neighborhood-related excerpts:
Tom Menino needs a haircut. The longtime Boston mayor wants to duck in for a trim at Johnny and Gino’s. It’s an old-school barbershop in the city’s Italian North End neighborhood, and Menino’s been going there ever since he first became mayor in July 1993, more than 18 years ago.
He starts talking policy again, but interrupts himself to expound on where to get the best deli sandwich in the city (it’s Sam La Grassa’s in the Financial District) or to point out the worst Italian restaurant in the North End (that one’s off the record).
“Being mayor, you have to have a sense of what the neighborhoods want,” he says over lunch at Mangia Mangia, a hole-in-the-wall carryout deli in the North End that’s a favorite spot of his. “You have to be out there every day listening to people. When you sit in your office, you don’t accomplish anything. You got to listen to people tell you what they think. That’s part of my success. I go out there and listen.”
