John Hynes is elected mayor of Boston.

Hynes (D), with 137,930 votes, defeats James Michael Curley (D), with 126,000, Patrick “Sonny” McDonough, with 22,230, George Oakes (R), with 7,171, and Walter O’Brien Jr. (Progressive), with 3,659. Turnout is 300,501 or 74.3%, the largest in Boston history. Hynes had been endorsed by all Boston’s major newspapers. The Christian Science Monitor said the defeat of Curley would end “one-man misrule in Boston,” and the Boston Globe declares that the victory by Hynes, “marks the end of one era and the beginning of another.” Hynes lives at 31 Druid Street and is inaugurated in Symphony Hall on January 2, 1950. He subsequently coins the term “New Boston,” reestablishes a long-absent working relationship between city government and Boston’s business community, and promotes urban renewal.