could transform the parquet basketball court into an ice arena or a boxing ring or a dirt corral. Rigidly unionized crews of carpenters and mechanics did the massive nightly work of preparing for circuses, rodeos, revivals, concerts, sports events, and political rallies. Services and equipment that the Garden crew itself could not provide were contracted out, but there too, strict controls were in place, and the levers belonged not to the Garden owner or the sports team owners but to certain union leaders and, as it happened, to a few of the Garden's North End neighbors. Particular caterers, liquor and soft-drink distributors, printers, sign painters, even veterinarians had locks on the right to service Garden events. They were known euphemistically as "preferred suppliers," but the relationship went beyond preference.
The Garden was only a quarter of a mile from City Square in Charlestown, but the river boundary had been absolute, and the rule extended to flowers. Since 1947, the preferred florist was Joe Lombardi, whose modest shop on Endicott Street had been a North End fixture for decades. In his time, Lombardi had decked out pulpits for Bishop Sheen and Billy Graham, stages for Liberace and Tommy Dorsey, floats for the Ice Capades, and podiums for Eamon de Valera, James Michael Curley, and Winston Churchill. His arrangements, featuring long birds of paradise and gladioli spiking out of fanning palm branches, along with sprays of mums, delphiniums, and hollyhock, always looked the same, but Lombardi knew what selections showed up from one side of an arena to another, and he also knew that nobody ever looked twice at flowers in such a place. When Sonja Henie performed, or when Mrs. Roosevelt spoke, or when some big shot's wife went with him to the platform, the same dozen roses always turned up in her arms. When Tony deMarco, a welterweight who grew up on Salem Street six blocks away, took the world title from Johnny Saxton in 1955, Lombardi himself climbed into the ring with a huge bouquet and presented it not to Tony but to the beaten Saxton. The flowers were lilies, and the fans loved the joke.
When Walter Brown, the Garden owner, called to tell Lombardi that the Kennedy people were supplying their own flowers for the election eve rally, the old Italian reacted with silence. Brown thought they'd been disconnected. He took the phone's handset away from his face to stare at it, then put it back to his ear. Finally Lombardi asked simply, "Why?" Brown said with a shrug in his voice that Kennedys write their own rules; they weren't even paying Garden costs. Even Cardinal Cushing, when he used the place, paid costs. Lombardi thought of Dineen and Reynolds, the Irishmen who ran the Flower Exchange. They wrote their own rules too, and Lombardi understood implicitly that some mick friend had gotten to Kennedy and was using him to redraw boundary lines. "Relax, Joe," Brown said, "it's a one-time thing." Instead of answering, Lombardi hung up. The next morning he got his son to drive him up to Revere, to see what Guido would say.
A fortnight later an exhausted John Fitzgerald Kennedy returned to Boston—77,000 miles, 45 states, and 237 cities in ten weeks. It was already dark. One hundred thousand wildly cheering supporters lined the streets on both sides of the harbor tunnels, territory over which P. I. Kennedy had ruled as an East Boston ward boss, and over which the North End's "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald had presided as mayor, and which had launched Jack Kennedy himself as the IIth District congressman.
The plan was that he would speed through the old neighborhood, then stop and change shirts at his downtown hotel, but because the cars moved so slowly, and because cameras were waiting—television would be the real meaning of this event—the decision was made to go right to the Garden.
The overhead lights on North Washington Street illuminated the crowd, and sure enough the jumpers were there, cueing the crowd's hysteria.
The Garden was only a quarter of a mile from City Square in Charlestown, but the river boundary had been absolute, and the rule extended to flowers. Since 1947, the preferred florist was Joe Lombardi, whose modest shop on Endicott Street had been a North End fixture for decades. In his time, Lombardi had decked out pulpits for Bishop Sheen and Billy Graham, stages for Liberace and Tommy Dorsey, floats for the Ice Capades, and podiums for Eamon de Valera, James Michael Curley, and Winston Churchill. His arrangements, featuring long birds of paradise and gladioli spiking out of fanning palm branches, along with sprays of mums, delphiniums, and hollyhock, always looked the same, but Lombardi knew what selections showed up from one side of an arena to another, and he also knew that nobody ever looked twice at flowers in such a place. When Sonja Henie performed, or when Mrs. Roosevelt spoke, or when some big shot's wife went with him to the platform, the same dozen roses always turned up in her arms. When Tony deMarco, a welterweight who grew up on Salem Street six blocks away, took the world title from Johnny Saxton in 1955, Lombardi himself climbed into the ring with a huge bouquet and presented it not to Tony but to the beaten Saxton. The flowers were lilies, and the fans loved the joke.
When Walter Brown, the Garden owner, called to tell Lombardi that the Kennedy people were supplying their own flowers for the election eve rally, the old Italian reacted with silence. Brown thought they'd been disconnected. He took the phone's handset away from his face to stare at it, then put it back to his ear. Finally Lombardi asked simply, "Why?" Brown said with a shrug in his voice that Kennedys write their own rules; they weren't even paying Garden costs. Even Cardinal Cushing, when he used the place, paid costs. Lombardi thought of Dineen and Reynolds, the Irishmen who ran the Flower Exchange. They wrote their own rules too, and Lombardi understood implicitly that some mick friend had gotten to Kennedy and was using him to redraw boundary lines. "Relax, Joe," Brown said, "it's a one-time thing." Instead of answering, Lombardi hung up. The next morning he got his son to drive him up to Revere, to see what Guido would say.
A fortnight later an exhausted John Fitzgerald Kennedy returned to Boston—77,000 miles, 45 states, and 237 cities in ten weeks. It was already dark. One hundred thousand wildly cheering supporters lined the streets on both sides of the harbor tunnels, territory over which P. I. Kennedy had ruled as an East Boston ward boss, and over which the North End's "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald had presided as mayor, and which had launched Jack Kennedy himself as the IIth District congressman.
The plan was that he would speed through the old neighborhood, then stop and change shirts at his downtown hotel, but because the cars moved so slowly, and because cameras were waiting—television would be the real meaning of this event—the decision was made to go right to the Garden.
The overhead lights on North Washington Street illuminated the crowd, and sure enough the jumpers were there, cueing the crowd's hysteria.
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