Is Quincy Mayor Koch facing trouble within his Old Quincy base or just addicted to the profligate spending of tax money?

– News about Quincy Massachusetts from Quincy Quarry News with commentary added

Benefactor Dennis Keohane, left; sculptress Victoria Guerina, right.
A still image from a WETC video

Recently the Town of Weymouth unveiled a statute commemorating hometown girl Abigail Adams, the wife of President John Adams, mother of President John Quincy Adams, and no small figure in American history in her own right. 

To see video of this statue’s dedication event in Weymouth, click here.

Weymouth’s statue of Abigail Adams is a deftly modified version of one of the pair of engaging as well as evocative statues which feature Abigail, John and John Quincy Adams and long-graced Quincy Square in front of Quincy’s two city halls.

Quincy Mayor Thomas P. Koch, however, removed these statues from Quincy Square years ago to make way for his grandiose and over the top Edifice Complex in front off Quincy’s two City Halls that is now better known to Quincy Quarry News’ ever-growing legions of loyal readers as Kim Jong Koch Plaza. 

Even more money yet up in smoke
Image via cheatsheet.com

This koched-up plan proved ineffectual, however, as along the way local women then pressed Mayor Koch to restore Abigail to Quincy Square.

In turn, Mayor Koch then gave way faster than one of his skinny suits and he then opted for his usual default response: spend more tax money so as to attempt to buy peace or at least endeavor to grift a distraction.

Specifically, by commissioning a new statute of Abigail made by his apparently favorite go to Soviet-trained émigré sculptor and who now apparently resides primarily in Italy.

Fortunately, Mr. Lillie died before his Adams Family statues were banished to Merrymount
A Quincy Quarry News exclusive file photo

Mayor Koch then also finally relocated the old statues from storage and put them on display at a arguably makeshift and plain off the beaten track location in Merrymount Park after years of often pointed criticism of his removing the statues in the first place. 

Even so, the wholly new statute by the émigré is little different than the original Lloyd Lillie statute of Abigail, albeit at a likely cost of couple hundred of thousands of dollars more as well as something which been the case previously with at least some of his work on public display in Quincy.

Beloved Abigail and John Quincy statue, left; Lazy copy, right.
Conjoined file photos

That and the likely added cost of flying the émigré sculptor as well as it would appear his two much younger female companions to Quincy from perhaps all the way from Italy for the unveiling of his, well, arguably quick and dirty copy of the Lloyd Lille original.

Financially-prudent Weymouth, on the other hand, went with a deft and tastefully reworking of the original Abigail and John Quincy Adams statue which features just Abigail.

Further, the new variant of the original statue was donated by Dennis Keohane, the head of the Quincy-based chain of Keohane Funeral Homes, and so saving money on the cost of the larger project of renovating Weymouth’s Heritage Park for the Town of Weymouth.

Mr. Keohane’s father was a member of The Quincy Partnership, a group of Quincy locals who both commissioned and then donated the original pair of statues featuring Abigail, John and John Quincy Adams as well as that apparently the Keohanes retained control of the statues’ molds as well as the basis to reproduce them.

Accordingly, Quincy homeboy Dennis Keohane so long-worked with the Town of Weymouth to see that the modified version of the original statute of Abigail and John Quincy featuring just Abigail could be installed in Heritage Park in Weymouth Center so to help commemorate Weymouth’s founding four hundred years ago in 1622.

Insisting to not be forgotten
A Quincy Quarry News exclusive photo

In particular, Keohane worked with the original statute’s maker, Boston-based renowned sculptor and women’s rights artistic advocate Lloyd Lillie. to see Lillie’s original design modified for a new installation in Weymouth

Unfortunately, Mr. Lillie died in 2020. 

Fortunately, his artistic associate, Victoria Guerina, a female Rhode Island sculptress and thus a variously ideal person to refashion the original statute of Abigail and a young John Quincy, took over the artistic side of this project.

Conversely unfortunate however and for reasons currently unclear, Mayor Koch did not simply and as well as surely inexpensively arrange for a duplicate casting of the Lillie/Guerina rework of the original Lillie statue which included Abigail to one which solely features Abigail. 

After all, multiple castings of a statue and then their separate installations is a common practice, not to mention that both Weymouth as well as what was then Braintree share Abigail’s gracing their respect communities.

You broke my heart Tommy …
An American Zoetrope image

As such, Mayor Koch’s going a different as well as surely much more expensive way baits an obvious question: with the Keohane family and its family business long a key supporter of Quincy’s peerless mayor, might there now be some friction between the mayor’s family and friends and what is at least one of the most influential Old Quincy families?

If so, will these two families soon be going to the mattresses against each other what with a local mayoral election coming up in the Q in November?

Needless to say, Quincy Quarry ever-growing legions off loyal readers can count on the Quarry to monitor things and then report back as might be appropriate.

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