Hey, what happened to the James M. Kelly Bridge…it’s disappeared sort of….

Way back in 2007, the Broadway Bridge was named after Southie native and City Council President Jimmy Kelly. On Thursday, it was “discovered” that the Kelly name was removed from the bridge and replaced by “Welcome to the West Broadway Bridge” with  Mayor Michelle Wu’s name.

According to the Boston Herald, this “mysterious error” wasn’t done intentionally. Ricardo Patron, a Wu spokesperson, told the Herald via a statement, “The old sign was to be updated but not changed, and the vendor accidentally included the location of the sign. The property management team is working to address this issue as soon as possible.” 

Hmmm…well, to keep you up to speed, there have been many local activists in Boston trying to rename the bridge because of Kelly’s anti-busing stances in the 1970s and accusations and allegations of racism.

Oh, boy. So now what will the mayor do? Keep the sign the way it is or add the name back to the bridge. Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

City Councilor Ed Flynn made the following statement on social media:

“Please note many of you have called my office upon noticing that City of Boston ‘Welcome to South Boston’ sign now incorrectly states the ‘West Broadway Bridge’ instead of the correct name — the James M. Kelly Bridge. I attended the bridge naming ceremony in 2007. In recent years, I have been on the record both with city officials and in several reports against renaming the bridge.”

So now we wait and see.

7 Comments

  1. Rob June 30, 2023 at 8:47 am - Reply

    Looks like Deval Patrick, the first black Governor of Massachusetts, endorsed naming the bridge after Mr Kelly. I’m afraid changing the name now would undermine and disrespect Governor Patrick.

  2. Brian June 30, 2023 at 8:56 am - Reply

    Ironically the Globe had an article last week where an education advocate was calling for a return to neighborhood High Schools, something that would have had him branded a racist in the very same paper back in the 70’s and 80’s!

  3. Cornelius O'Blarney June 30, 2023 at 3:59 pm - Reply

    Most of the people who want to cancel Jimmy Kelly and others from his era, were probably not yet born when he was giving his best for his beloved neighborhood. The same people have probably never done much of anything in the way of real community volunteer work, which made neighborhoods like Southie work for generations. I seriously doubt that Mayor Wu had any personal knowledge of this action. There may be political and policy differences, but she seems to understand the value of neighborhoods, and she does not seem inclined to stoop to personal insults in any discussion. Let’s fix the sign and move on.

    • [email protected] June 30, 2023 at 9:07 pm - Reply

      You couldn’t be more “off base” about someone if you were AWOL from the army. I can’t EVEN with you. Yeah. She knew nothing about the sign.

      Sure.

      Just one question:

      Wanna buy a bridge?

  4. Tony C. June 30, 2023 at 10:04 pm - Reply

    Cornelius – she seems to understand the value of neighborhoods.

    Seriously? Ask the good people of the North End. Perhaps you should have inserted the word ‘certain’ neighborhoods. And we know which ones they are… 

  5. Stephen Oconnor July 1, 2023 at 8:22 pm - Reply

    yeah everybody hated southie for decades now there lining up to bye million dollar condos hypocrites

  6. mark carroll July 8, 2023 at 11:28 am - Reply

    THIS IS A COMPLETE LACK OF RESPECT. WE NEED ONLY TO LOOK AT THE TODAYS CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS RECENTLY MAKING NEWS FOR THE WRONG REASONS. THERE WAS NO HARDER WORKING ELECTED OFFICIAL THAN MR JIM KELLY. LETS NOT BE THE CITY THATS LOST ITS COMMON SENSE. WE CAN HONER HISTORY,AND ACKNOWLEDGE OVERALL CHANGES IN SOCIETY IN REGARD TO ACCEPTANCE.

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