Friends, officials remember Marino

LYNN – Antonio J. “Tony” Marino, Lynn?s longest-serving mayor, died Sunday night at the age of 92, prompting an outpouring of praise and remembrance from friends, relatives, political allies and sometime foes.The man who grew up on Vine Street with 11 siblings, who helped liberate the Philippine Islands aboard a Navy ship, and who represented unionized furniture workers at the bargaining table, died in Edith Nourse Rogers veterans hospital.Marino was the husband of Ingrid (Graff) Marino, and his funeral is scheduled on Thursday with a funeral Mass in Holy Family Church followed by burial in the city?s World War II veterans lot.?He was the greatest. He was like a father and he was a true gentleman,” said Claire Avadanian Cavanagh, Marino?s former secretary.Over the span of 11 years as mayor in the 1970s and 1980s, Marino guided the city through a fire that gutted downtown buildings and a state property tax limitation measure that slammed it with financial challenges.Even as flames gutted Broad Street mill buildings in 1981, former state Rep. Steven Angelo recalled how Marino assembled city officials in the former Hotel Edison to map out the city?s revival.?I remember feeling heat from the fire through the wall I was standing next to but already he was talking about what needed to be done. Even from a tragic event, he was saying, ?What do we need to make this better??” Angelo recalled.State Sen. Thomas M. McGee said Marino and McGee?s late father, former Massachusetts House Speaker Thomas W. McGee, tackled the city?s problems together and mapped out the groundwork with former state Senate Majority Leader Walter J. Boverini to build North Shore Community College on the fire site.?He had a vision for what would be down there,” McGee said.Marino rode a political rollercoaster throughout his career in elected office. A longtime ally of the late Mayor Pasquale Caggiano, Marino won a special election in July 1972, beating a former City Council member who became acting mayor when Caggiano died three months earlier.Marino lost a 1973 reelection bid but two years later he beat former Mayor David Phillips and began a mayoral tenure the following year that ended with his 1985 election defeat.Former City Council President Robert Tucker?s political tenure paralleled Marino?s career and the pair battled over Marino?s decision to close the former Broad Street fire station, located in Tucker?s ward.?Even in disagreement, he kept the lines of communication open,” Tucker recalled.Marino was “bigger than life,” said Tucker, who described the former mayor as a strong-willed political leader who stood front and center for the working people he represented as a labor leader.?It was pretty hard to say ?no? to him,” Tucker said.Cavanagh worked for Caggiano and former Acting Mayor Walter Meserve before joining Marino?s staff. She said Marino counseled her as well as young aspirants to elected office, Charles Gaeta and John L. O?Brien Jr., in the ways of politics.?He was like a father: He drilled us, scolded us and encouraged all of us,” he said.O?Brien won a council seat and is currently Southern Essex Register of Deeds. Gaeta is a former council president and current Housing Authority and Neighborhood Development executive director.?He was a real people person. He loved this city as much as anyone I know,” Gaeta said of Marino.Marino?s younger brother, Joseph, said the years his brother spent representing furniture workers around New England in grievances and at the bargaining table equipped him for politics and galvanized Marino?s interest in elected office.Despite his forceful personality, Tony Marino had his share of fears, including heights.?If we were painting or doing some project even three or four feet off the ground, he would build staging to stand on that would have supported the Titanic,” Joseph Marino recalled.Former Lynn Community Development Director Edward Calnan said the push to spur development in Lynn that began before the 1981 fire c