3 things we learned from Mayor Menino’s first State of the City speech

Tonight Mayor Thomas Menino will deliver his 20th State of the City address.

But Metro recently came across a video of his inaugural State of the City speech as Menino was fresh off of his first mayoral election win.

Menino has been in office so long that few of us remember that speech he gave on Jan. 19, 1994, but Metro rewatched it and learned a few things:

*He’s not a fancy talkah. One of the first things Menino mentioned in his first State of the City speech was his less than articulate ways. “You heard me say it a hundred times during the campaign; I’m not a fancy talker,” he said. Menino poked fun as his way of speaking during the speech and used the phrase “fancy talker” at least four times. “You didn’t elect me mayor because I’m a fancy talker,” he joked toward the end of his speech.

*Menino was a forward-looking mayor. After 20 years in office and countless imitative and programs we now know that Menino likes to push Boston forward as best he and his staff can. During his 1994 speech, Menino spoke about his vision for his time as mayor and how he wanted to “get city government at all levels ready for a new era in a new century.” Since that speech Menino and his staff have launched the Citizens Connect app, which the state is now using as a model for other cities and towns, pushed for growth in the new Innovation District and launched the first mobile City Hall. “A new century begins today,” Menino said at the end of the 1994 speech.

*Menino had some big glasses. We know it was the 90s, but the glasses Menino wore during his first State of the City speech were huge. We couldn’t stop focusing on them. They took up as much room on his face as ski goggles. While the size of his eyeglasses may have shrunk over his two decades in office, his political clout certainly hasn’t.