James Michael Curley, on being released from prison, returned to his mayoral office at Boston City Hall, and spent a short time signing contracts. As Mayor Curley left, he boasted to reporters: ““Gentlemen, I’ve accomplished more in five minutes than has been accomplished here in the last five months.”

His replacement, the usually mild-mannered John B. Hynes, was standing by to hear these words. Infuriated, Hynes decided then and there that he would run against Curley for election as mayor. He did so, and his election in 1949 marks a decisive turning point in the fortunes of the City of Boston.

This is the view of Thomas O’Connor, the preeminent historian of Boston, who last week engaged in a public dialogue with me about his native city. Now University Historian at Boston College, this genial 82-year-old scholar brings decades of experience to writing about the events and personalities of this area.

Filled with stories and anecdotes about Boston, O’Connor delights in his work as observer of three centuries of local history. He attributes inspiration for his career to his Aunt Nellie, a Miss Marple-like woman who used to take him to visit downtown.  When he was only an eighth-grader, this great-aunt gave him for Christmas a copy of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Essays.

Back to the upstart mayor John Hynes. What he did, O’Connor says, is to break down the barriers that had long stood between the Irish and Yankee communities. Instead of carrying further the ongoing feud, this dethroner of Curley reached out to the bankers and other business leaders of the city and established alliances with them. Working together, Hynes and his new allies pointed the way toward a different kind of Boston.

Another important transition, Professor O’Connor holds, was that from Cardinal O’Connell to Cardinal Cushing in 1945. Cushing reached out in ecumenical friendship to Protestant and Jewish communities, something his predecessor as archbishop had never done. He brought to an end the era of Catholic triumphalism that had alienated other religious groups.

If people in Greater Boston now feel pride about their city, it is owing in large part to Hynes and Cushing, along with the later mayors John Collins and Kevin White. Tom O’Connor sees three events in the jubilee year 1976 as bringing the attention of people living in the suburbs to the transformation that had taken place in the city.

The visit of the Tall Ships, the visit of the Queen of England, and the concerts led by Arthur Fiedler on the banks of the Charles River alerted hundreds of thousands to the new scene. In O’Connor’s words: “The visitors looked around and said ‘look what they have done.’”

Asked why Boston is now regarded as open to diversity and tolerant of gay people in particular, O’Connor guesses that the very intensity of past prejudice has produced a backlash. Even in South Boston, where the historian grew up, people of color and of divergent lifestyles are currently accepted without question. This remains in sharp contrast to the past when minorities would fear to come to Castle Island and other places in Southie.

As to the changes in Boston’s Catholics, he attributes much importance to Jack Kennedy’s election as president. “Before that, you had to be a conformist.,” he says. “Kennedy’s rise allowed people to become critics as never before.” In this new atmosphere the Berrigan brothers could demonstrate against American militarism and religious sisters picket against racism.”  And, indeed, the young John Kerry could protest the Vietnam War.

For O’Connor, one insufficiently explored part of Boston’s history is the role of Irish women who worked in Yankee households. They became what he calls “culture carriers,” acute observers of how their employers lived. In time, when they founded their own families, they passed on some of the skills and values they had picked up from those economically better off.

Like many others, O’Connor is still reeling from what he calls the downfall of the Catholic Church in Boston. “It’s like being in the eye of a hurricane,” he says of the tumultuous events that have taken place here. “It is hard to get any perspective on it and I don’t know what the outcome will be,” he adds.

Drawing on the wisdom of a long lifetime, O’Connor expresses concern about some of the changes that have come upon his native city. “Boston may change so much that it becomes just another American city,” he warns. It will take prudent decisions if we are to build wisely upon the bold initiatives taken to improve the place.

In the preface to his book “Boston A to Z,” O’Connor writes: “It is this curious blend of the old and the new, the juxtaposition of the antique and the modern, that gives Boston its most distinctive flavor.” Preserving and enhancing this mix will challenge future leaders as well as members of local communities. In an era when change takes hold so quickly, keeping a sane balance will surely test the city’s mettle.

Richard Griffin