Revere Through the Years

10 years ago

July 28, 2004

Revere Beach officially was designated as a National Historic Landmark in exercises held Monday that were attended by local, state, and federal officials.

School Supt. Paul Dakin and the School Committee have decided to use funds, which had been designated for certain, state-mandated bureaucratic requirements, instead to hire 10 teachers which Dakin says are urgently needed in the Revere schools.

A 21 year old man, Bernard Ortolan, was found shot dead with a bullet wound to the chest in a room at North Revere’s Courtyard by Marriott, where he was found by police who responded to a 911 call. Two Peabody men and a Lynn man, ages 19-22, have been arrested on murder charges. A botched robbery of cash is believed to have been the motive in the shooting.

State Rep. Bob DeLeo voted with a majority of the Mass. House to extend the Federal Assault Weapons Ban in Massachusetts. The national ban will expire September 14.

 

30 years ago

July 25,1984

The City Council will meet with residents of Fenno St. and representatives from the Parkway Assembly of God to discuss concerns about parking and congestion that may arise from the church’s plans for an $800,000 expansion of its building.

The majority of four members of the School Committee, led by Committeeman Hal Ford Abrams, has renewed its efforts to fire School Supt. William J. Hill. Abrams filed a motion to have the School Board’s legal counsel look into the legality of Hill’s contract and tried to censure Hill on two matters. However, the latter move backfired when the other committee members recited the facts concerning those two matters and the majority was unable to prove its case.

The city announced this week that funds totaling $375,000 from the Mass. Housing Finance Agency have been made available for first-time homebuyers in Revere with below-market interest rates of 11.75 percent under the Neighborhood Rehabilitation Program.

Michael R. Picariello is the new Commander and Lucy Todisco the new Auxiliary President of the Joseph Leon Mottola VFW Post No. 524.

RHS junior Susan Hunt has been named to serve as a member of the Student Advisory Committee of the State Board of Education.

Meatballs 2, The Karate Kid, and Purple Rain are playing at the Revere Showcase Cinemas.

 

40 years ago

July 24, 1974

School officials announced this week that the new, $15 million Revere High School will be ready to open for the start of the school year.

The City Council will hold a public hearing on the proposal by Mayor William G. Reinstein to appropriate $418,000 for architectural fees to convert the former Revere High into a middle school.

Stephen Brunell of Revere, a 16 year MDC lifeguard working at Constitution Beach in East Boston, has been credited with saving a 13 year old youth from drowning.

The School Committee has asked that Police Chief George P. Corbett order his men to enforce the law that requires all school property to be vacated after sunset. Vandals recently caused more than $8000 in damage by smashing windows at the Lincoln and Whelan schools after dark.

The Rumney Marsh Players will stage their inaugural production, A Night in Revere, a situation comedy, at the JCC this weekend.

A former Revere couple, Dominic and Antointette Nesta, who left their Malden St. home in Revere in 1971 when their 24 year old son, Wayne, died in December of that year, were killed in their new home on Buzzards Bay in a freak accident when a truck that had come to dig a well in their backyard brought down a power line. Dominic was killed when he came to the aid of the truck driver and was electrocuted by the 24,000 volt line. His wife suffered the same fate when she went to assist her husband

Mayor William G. Reinstein’s second annual Revere Tennis Tourney got underway this week.

 

50 years ago

July 23, 1964

The City Council unanimously has named City Clerk Joseph McChristal as the Acting City Manager in the wake of the resignation of former City Manager Melvin Taymore. Taymore, who was named to the job in December after the sudden resignation of former City Manager Edward P. O’Toole, who has since been indicted on multiple counts of embezzling city funds, officially cited health reasons for his resignation. However, Taymore also said in his letter of resignation that he had been taken aback in his six months on the job by “the constant tirades of venom” and the “deep-rooted influences of the past which continue to exert pressure for special privileges for the favored few.”  Taymore said that the City Council should oppose the upcoming referendum which seeks to return Revere to an elected mayoral form of government and said that the present Plan E government with a City Manager is running the city more efficiently and economically than a mayor could.

One of Taymore’s last acts as City Manager was to name Louis Fiore Jr. of 144 Revere St. to the newly-created post of Housing Inspector for the Board of Health, a job that will pay $4800. The City Council had voted 4-3 to create the position, despite pleas from Councilor George V. Colella that the new job was an example of the political influence wielded by the favored few. The new appointee is the uncle of City Councillor Frank Fiore Jr., who voted in favor of creating the new job last week.

A new inductee into the Baseball Hall of Fame, Tim Keefe, has a Revere connection. Keefe was a star pitcher for the New York Giants in the 1880s and 1890s and won 345 games in the Major Leagues. He was immortalized as the pitcher who struck out Casey in the famous poem, Casey at the Bat. Keefe later went on to coach baseball at Harvard and Tufts after he retired from the major leagues at the age of 40. He died in Cambridge in 1933 at the age of 76. He was the brother of Mrs. Ellen Brodbine of this city, who raised nine children in Revere, some of whom still are alive. One of those nephews, Conte Brodbine, who died in 1948, was a state representative and state senator from Revere. Keefe’s nephews and nieces who still are alive recall him as a dapper man who frequently took them to baseball games when they were children. Keefe’s father was thrown into Confederate prison during the Civil War for refusing to fight against the Union. Keefe’s father’s three younger brothers, all of whom fought for the Union, all died in the First Battle of Bull Run.

Tom Tryon and Carol Lynley star in The Cardinal at the Revere Theatre. How the West Was Won is playing at the Revere Drive In.

 

60 years ago

July 29, 1954

Archbishop Richard J. Cushing has announced that the Rev. Joseph J. Leonard, pastor of St. Theresa’s since 1947, is being transferred to Immaculate Conception parish in Malden.

Residents of Beachmont met with city officials to discuss the poor drainage in that part of the city when severe Northeast storms strike. Residents expressed particular concern about the back-up of sewage as happened during the last storm.

Fire Chief Thomas J. McCarrick cited the big fires at Suffolk Downs, the Frolic, and Orr Square as the reasons why fire losses are $39,000 greater in the first six months of this year compared to the same period a year ago.

Automobile accidents injured 18 persons in the city during the past week, including a 20 year old Lynn woman who is on the danger list after a head-on collision on the General Edwards Bridge.

The Harvard Education Study Group has recommended that a new Revere High School be built and that a kindergarten program be instituted. The study also recommends that Revere go to a K-4-4-4 system instead of the present 6-3-3 system.

East Boston Little League officials are so impressed with the Revere Little League field, considered to be one of the finest in this part of the country, all of which is owing to the dedication and perseverance of a few of our residents, that they have asked permission to hold their home tournament games here and Revere officials have agreed to do so.

The runner-up in the recent Miss Universe Pageant, Miss Maria Martha Rocha of Brazil, plans to visit her sister, Mrs. Maria Lucia Bernard of 304 Reservoir Rd., shortly. The winner of the pageant was Miriam Stevenson of the U.S.

Gary Cooper and Susan Hayward star in Garden of Evil at the Revere Drive In. Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall, and Betty Grable star in How to Marry a Millionaire at the Revere Theatre.

 

70 years ago

July 27, 1944

Seaman 1st Class George H. Singer, 17, son of Mr. and Mrs. John Singer of 78Centennial Ave., has been reported killed by the War Dept. in the explosion of two ammunition ships at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine in San Francisco. Singer had just returned from four months of overseas duty in the Pacific.

Six sons and a grandson of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Goldman of 481 Beach St. present are serving in the military. The Goldmans say that they are pleased and proud of the war’s progress and they are praying for all of their sons and grandson.

Draft Board 128 sent its smallest group of inductees in recent years this week, comprised of just seven volunteers.

Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, and Joseph Cotten star in Gaslight and Betty Grable stars in Pin-Up Girl at the Revere and Boulevard Theatres.