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Poll Finds Marathon Bombings Changed Boston

With the one year anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15th a new poll of Massachusetts residents finds a strong majority—73 percent -- believe the attack changed the city in a lasting way.

Of those who said the attack had altered the city, sixty-two percent said the change was for the better, according to the Western New England University Poll.   Polling director Tim Vercellotti said people mentioned a surge in civic pride and a feeling of unity that followed the bombing.

" Folks would talk about the Boston Strong campaign and a few brought up the World Series and the Red Sox victory as a way of healing the city and bringing it back and just giving a stronger more positive sense of community in Boston as a way of finding a silver lining in, of course, a very dark cloud."

The poll found the state about evenly divided on whether bombing suspect Dzhokar Tsnaraev should get the death penalty if convicted.

The record-setting tenure of Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno. The 2011 tornado and its recovery that remade the largest city in Western Massachusetts. The fallout from the deadly COVID outbreak at the Holyoke Soldiers Home. Those are just a few of the thousands and thousands of stories WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill has covered for WAMC in his nearly 17 years with the station.