When former Boston Mayor Thomas Menino was campaigning for the job he would hold for 20 years, a future Boston mayor was standing along the sidelines.

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, who assumed the job after Menino decided not to run for re-election in 2013, appears in the background of a Boston Globe photo that captured Menino shaking hands on the campaign trail. While his face is shaded by the brim of his Red Sox hat, Mayor Walsh’s office did confirm that the man standing along the gate just by the stop sign is in fact Boston’s current mayor. The photo was taken at the Columbus Day Parade in the North End, just as Menino was gearing up for his first mayoral election.


The then 26-year-old Walsh was working for the laborer’s union, which he first joined at age 21 as a benefits officer, according to The Boston Globe. Menino was 50, and had been serving the city as acting mayor since the summer, according to the Globe. He was on his way to winning his first election to officially secure the position, which he would hold for longer than any mayor in Boston’s history.

Menino died on Oct. 30, 2014. Walsh has invited the public to join him in a moment of silence at City Hall Plaza Friday to remember Menino on the one year anniversary of his death.