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Ray Flynn could get a bridge named after him
By adamg on Mon, 02/22/2016 - 7:31pm
A commission set up to figure out how to honor former Mayor Ray Flynn says that in addition to renaming the Boston Marine Industrial Park after Flynn, the city should rename the Summer Street Bridge over the Reserved Channel as the Mayor Raymond L. Flynn Bridge.
The commission said the honor would be most fitting since Flynn "built bridges that linked a prosperous downtown to affordable housing, jobs and other opportunities for supporting better lives in Boston's neighborhoods."
Also proposed: Building a visitor center in the marine industrial park and naming it after Flynn.
The commission rejected a proposal to rename the South Boston convention center after Flynn, not because the convention center was Tom Menino's baby, but because commission members learned that renaming the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center would mess with its branding in the global convention business, which would "simply be bad for business."
The commission also came out against a Flynn statue partly because of the cost, partly because of the difficulty in "choosing among many equally attractive locations."
Complete Flynn Commission report (2.2M PDF).
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Comments
They can name it all they want
It will still be the Summer Street bridge.
Just like nobody calls Broadway Bridge the Kelly Bridge.
I can't believe how recently
I can't believe how recently that bridge was named for Kelly. Can you imagine that happening in the current climate? Naming something after Southie's premier white supremacist?
Jimmy kelly
If it wasn't for Jimmy Kelly Southie wouldn't be so great to live here. All of you newcomers should be great full that Jimmy cared so much about the people that live here . If you don't like it here take the Jimmy Kelly bridge back to where you came from. We didn't ask you to move here.
lmfao
my ass
i literally laughed until it fell off. seriously, i need to go grab a shovel and retrieve it.
holy shit what a relic you are
Jimmy kelly
Moving here doesn't mean your from here. You're just reaping the benefits of guys like Jimmy Kelly that made Southie safe, clean, and so popular to live.
Jimmy Kelly got Whitey Bulger out of town?
Impressive.
no
Its (at one time) cheap housing and proximity to downtown made it so popular to live there*, and its resulting gentrification made the ones "not from there" stick around. Jimmy Kelly was just a loud racist.
*I have a feeling its demographic made it feel safer for suburban bros than areas of Roxbury on the Orange Line, but that's a topic for another day...
Wow, you know your history!
Wow, you know your history! Too bad you didn't know that Jimmy Kelly was one of the longest serving Presidents of the Boston City Council, and was loved by his peers in city hall, as well as the mayor. Maybe you should move back home with mommy.
Yeah, that knowledge and a token ...
Would've gotten you on the T.
When the city council had troglodytes like Dapper O'Neil on it, it probably wasn't too much of a stretch for Kelly to keep getting re-elected to the largely ceremonial job.
Wait
How was it a largely ceremonial job when Kelly was doing it but it was crucial to governing (per parts of the peanut gallery here) when Linehan was doing it with the support of Wu?
strong words
Strong words coming from someone who likely was passed down his home from his mommy.
Haters, one more time
Jimmy Kelly was the longest serving City Council President, elected by all the other councilors, who were probably voted in by all you hater's mommy and daddy's.
ribbon cutting ceremony
Could they have him drive through the ribbon?
His car is out of order
After he drove thru a wall instead.
Only if they call it...
The Flynn Flyway!
Bridge work
Not sure I would want any bridges with my name on it under this administration...they seem to have a bad attitude about them...
Shouldn't it be "former
Shouldn't it be "former ambassador Flynn" as opposed to "former mayor Flynn"?
What's the rule with titles for former government officials?
Well ...
Since the whole point of the exercise is to honor his work as mayor, using that title seemed more appropriate.
For former officials, the
For former officials, the general/old rule is that your highest ranking title which could be held by multiple people at the same time be used. Hence, you hear so many politicos addressed as "Ambassador" or "Judge", since there are numerous people in those positions, and they keep that title for life.
There can only be one president at a time, so they are supposed to be referred to as "former president Bush, Clinton, etc".
Ranking is ordered from things like the US order of precedence, which is on Wikipedia. You'll notice the order says Mayors from hosting cities get higher precedence than ambassadors. Which is somehow equatable to a bridge in Boston for Mayor Ray Flynn, rather than ambassador.
true, true, true
...though, let's be honest, is Ambassador to the Vatican actually higher ranking than Mayor of Boston?
*ducks as communion wafers are violently hurtled my way*
A visitors center in the
A visitors center in the marine industrial park, wtf? No one visits for pleasure now, so just build one to honor Flynn??
I'm all for a statue, though. This committee seems shortsighted and penniless. Just fundraise, build a statue near Government Center, and be done with it.
I agree - no marines park
No one visits Govt Center for pleasure either..haha.
Put a statue in The Shannon, Murphs, Touchies,
The IA,Striggies,the Q....Rubber Railings
And pad the lampposts
No honor for bigots
Would a politician known for hatred of African-Americans or Jews be honored? If not then the same standard same applies to an ex-politician who has made his bigotry against Gay known.
Dapper
Dapper has a nice little plaque (on private property) outside the K of C in Roslindale.
Being a yuppie out of town non-Catholic gentrifier, I've never been in that place - is it used much for events or just as a meeting place for KoC members?
I disagree.
I disagree.
Different time, different era makes all the difference.
I think Flynn deserves recognition.
Different era? Flynn has made
Different era? Flynn has made his homophobic bigotry known in this era, not talking about way back in the 80s. And hiding behind/blaming your religion for being bigoted as some do is no more acceptable than when terrorists like the ones n the Paris attacks use their religion to back up their hate/violence.
Its astounding that Walsh is
Its astounding that Walsh is even THINKING of honoring this thug. Flynn is a divider, old Boston, the one that current Bostonians have to work hard to tell the world we are no longer like that (most of us). Honoring people like Fynn, Kelley and the other thugs of southie is like honoring confederate generals, bigots who set their part of the country backwards with their hate.
It's OK to admit you didn't live here in the 1980s
And I know you have a pathological fear of people who did, but, trust me, as somebody who did live in Boston in the old days, Mayor Flynn was world's different from angry anti-busing Ray Flynn - I'm not ashamed to admit I voted for him after the first election (no, he wasn't perfect, but he did do a lot to repair the damage done by Garrity, White and, not directly related, Prop. 2 1/2).
I did live here in the 1980s.
I did live here in the 1980s. Not everyone was loving what Flynn was selling, and were happy to see him shipped off to the Vatican. Sorry he was unwanted there and sent back. Just because he was better than White or Kelley is a low bar, like saying people who argue for separate but equal are better than the klan.
Unfortunately for garrity
Garrity is the patsy for the delay by boston school committee, mayor and city council of that era in implementing desegregation laws that were passed a decade before. If Boston had started desegregation when it was supposed to - and done it gradually - the nightmare that was busing could have been avoided. Instead Garrity had to force boston to started it school wide the next year via forced busing of all grades. Look up Louise "you know where I stand" Day-Hicks and the other politicians who were absolute racist and fear mongering pitting poor whites vs poor blacks at the time. Kind of sounds like the Republican Party at the moment.
Ray Flynn a thug?
There are certain things about Ray Flynn that I haven't (and still don't) like (i. e. his being totally against the right to choose, and against birth control, and ignoring pedophalia among priests), but that doesn't mean that the guy's a thug.
I'll also add that Ray Flynn did some good stuff while he was mayor of Boston. He was anti-busing, but he was equally opposed to any violent resistance to it. He also helped stop excessive drinking during the annual St. Patrick's Day parade in Southie. People's tempers really were running sky-high at the time of the Federal Court-mandated large-scale cross city school busing at that time, and Flynn helped cool people's tempers down at that time. Flynn also spoke out a great deal against the racial assaults, especially those assaults committed by whites against blacks and other non-whites, and quickly served notice (when he took power) that those kinds of racially-motivated assaults were unacceptable and would not be tolerated.
So, yes, racial tensions did calm down considerably under (former) Mayor Ray Flynn's watch. He also opened up the parks and beaches in Southie and white Dorchester, which was also a good thing.
And let's not forget
The feds came down hard on decades of racial discrimination by the BHA during Flynn's term, and he worked to implement a fair and just resolution to the detriment of support from some corners of Southie.