Supporters Watch Menino's Funeral on Boston's City Hall Plaza

A small crowd stood on a wind-whipped City Hall Plaza, watching the service that honored Boston's longest-serving mayor.

There were never very many — perhaps 40 people at most — standing in a loose horseshoe around a large video screen, watching the funeral of former Boston Mayor Tom Menino.

On a wind-whipped City Hall Plaza, it was strangely intimate.

"It was silent," said Maryellen Bache of Arlington, Massachusetts. "You could really feel the emotion."

"It’s very painful. It’s a very emotional moment," said Juan Jacques, who lives in Menino's neighborhood, the Readville section of Boston's Hyde Park.

Jacques said he often saw the mayor stopping in at the bank or pizza parlor, and whenever there was a problem in his city, he was there.

"There will never be another guy like that in Boston," he said. "Everybody’s problem is his problem."

"A lot of people said he wasn’t a great speaker, but somehow or another, he was a great listener," said Bob D'Amico, who works for the city's transportation department.

D'Amico started working for the mayor in the 1980s.

"What you saw is what you got. There was no phoniness," he said. "To lose that is very difficult, because I don’t know how you fill his shoes."

Men in suits, women with flowers, black, white, young, old, supporters were out there, touting Menino’s bicycle program, his color blindness or the way he championed the underserved and marginalized.

"One of the first mayors too raise the gay pride flag, here in Government Center," said Earnest Offley. "It means a lot. It makes you feel welcome."

Sheila Gravina leafleted for then-candidate Menino in the early 80s, along with seven of her brothers and sisters. She said Menino helped her mom, struggling in the hard-scrabble inner city, to secure her first home.

"We feel like we really lost a family member, because he did so much for us," she said.

"There’s nobody like him. You’re never going to see another person like that, who was absolutely for the people," said Bache. "That’s what he was - for the people. He did it for the people. He loved the people."

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