Keeping faith with a city neighborhood
New life for sisters’ school
There’s a memorable scene in “Mystic River” in which Tim Robbins, walking through old stomping grounds with his boyhood friend Kevin Bacon, wistfully notes “the neighborhood could use a good crime wave to get property values down where they belong.”
Anyone calling Southie home, especially anyone with deep roots there, could appreciate that bittersweet sentiment as they watch the plundering of a place they love by mercenaries who have no regard for memories or traditions, focusing only upon the fortunes to be made in real estate ventures there.
That’s what makes Patrick Mahoney more than an odd duck; indeed, the man’s a total aberration, or at least he is until you hear his story, which he’s quite reluctant to share.
But to understand what he’s done you need to understand where he’s been.
For more than 150 years a Catholic teaching order known as the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur has been helping kids reclaim squandered futures, getting them back into classrooms and basically getting their heads on straight. These are usually city kids with not a whole lot going for them except untapped potential.
But when the owner of the building housing that school placed it on a very hot market, the sisters were about to be put out of business.
That’s when Mahoney stepped in.
A 38-year-old zoning attorney with a wife and two daughters, and a partner in All Saints Development, he would be the first to say he’s living the American Dream.
So why would he bid on the available structure at 200 Old Colony Avenue, especially with the idea of tearing it down and replacing it with a new residential building in which the school would be given the entire second floor at no cost?
“I talked about this with Enda (Matigan), my partner, and he understood,” Mahoney said. “I never went to this school, but I know it helps the kind of kid I used to be. When I was 16 I had a little problem with alcohol; at 17 I dropped out of high school in Weymouth.
“If it wasn’t for people like these sisters I don’t know where I’d be today; I don’t even want to think about it.”
Mahoney encountered caring people who directed his path to Weymouth Evening School, then to the electricians’ IBEW union where a program helped him gain entrance to Wentworth Institute, from which he moved on to Northeastern’s law school.
“I don’t want to use my story for self-promotion,” he said. “But when I see the kids this school helps I’m looking at a younger version of myself, 22 years later.
“When I was really messed up I received the same kind of help these sisters provide to hundreds of kids every year. Now, because of the help I received, I have a chance to pass it along, giving this school a permanent home in Southie to continue helping kids just like the kid I once was.
“Call it a spiritual journey if you want. I was given a second shot at life and grabbed it. Now I want to give that to someone else.
“It’s as simple as that, no big deal.”