In 1984, WGBH aired this documentary following a young Tom Menino’s campaign for Boston City Council.

“Neighborhoods’’ took a look at Menino’s rise in politics, describing him as “a Hyde Park native son’’ whose campaign was an attempt to “turn a lifetime of friendships into a seat on the city council.’’

The video is a time capsule to Hizzonor’s humble start in Boston politics. Impossibly young, with a head full of hair and his signature glasses, Menino is seen practicing a speech behind a gerryrigged lectern made from an end table and television set

In backyards and city streets, Menino worked his Hyde Park friends and neighbors, cajoling a voter’s from the city’s oft-neglated southern neighborhood, and running his ragtag outfit from a space above Mario’s Pizza on Hyde Park Avenue.


An Italian running in a predominantly Irish neighborhood, Menino focused on Crime, taxes and education as campaign issues rather than identity politics in the “heavily working class’’ neighborhood.

Menino would keep that focus years later, as he stormed into the mayor’s office promising to be an “urban mechanic’’ for Boston.