Mayor’s Mark

Photographs by Tina Rivosecchi

Mayor Thomas M. Menino welcomes you to the Back Bay. He welcomes you to Roxbury. He thanks you for throwing out your trash. He’s with you on your Hubway bike. Everywhere you look in Boston, there’s a sign onto which Menino’s tacked his name. But with his final term drawing to an end, we couldn’t help but wonder: Just how many soon-to-be-outdated Menino signs are out there?

We tried to find a master list somewhere, but a Menino spokesman told us it doesn’t exist. To get the numbers, we learned, we would have to go from department to department. So that’s what we did. We tracked down 1,182 signs in Boston with Hizzoner’s name (though we’re sure many more exist). And that doesn’t even include signs put up by the BRA or the schools, neither of which track their numbers. City officials say it’ll be up to Menino’s successor to decide whether to scrub his name from signs, which means the mayor may be hanging around for a while longer, at least in name.

Parks & Recreation Department › Roughly 200 signs bearing Menino’s name

Hubway › 720 bikes 

Department of Public Works › 180 big belly trash cans and 40 standard barrels