Long before newspapers would be read on computer screens, the city’s dailies, including The Boston Globe, were based in downtown Boston’s Newspaper Row, where breaking news was hand-written on blackboards hung in their windows.
When the Globe moved to a new building on Morrissey Boulevard in Dorchester in 1958, Garabed “Gary” Kayakachoian, who had started as a Globe office boy in 1944 and became a reporter 10 years later, went along with the staff. Mr. Kayakachoian was a “Globie’’ for almost 48 years, retiring from the paper in 1992.
“There was a delightful ‘town crier’ aspect to Gary,’’ Globe sportswriter Kevin Paul Dupont recalled. “He wanted to learn things first, then get on to the business of letting others know what he knew.”
Ronald Wysocki of Peabody was 19 in 1954 when he began working at the Globe on Newspaper Row and met Mr. Kayakachoian.
“Gary was already on staff, working midnight to 8 on the lobster shift,’’ said Wysocki, who eventually left the paper to become an attorney. “Gary was among the last of the survivors of Newspaper Row.’’
Mr. Kayakachoian, who was also an elected Town Meeting member in Brookline for 29 years, suffered from dementia and died June 9 at the Armenian Nursing Home in Jamaica Plain, according to his son, Gary, a professor of finance at the University of Rhode Island. Mr. Kayakachoian, who had lived in Brookline since 1965, would have turned 88 Tuesday.
“Because of his immigrant background, Gary felt it was an amazing accomplishment to work for The Boston Globe,’’ said Gary Jones of Brookline, a former state representative from Middleborough. “When he retired, he wanted to do public service.’’
In 2005, when he was 79, he ran unsuccessfully for Brookline selectman, motivated, he said, by frustration over the town’s snow removal that winter, according to a story in the Globe.
“It was terrible; it was a disgrace,’’ he said. If elected, he said, he would start by cutting school spending.
Mr. Kayakachoian “loved politics,’’ said Jody Dow of Brookline, former Republican national committeewoman from Massachusetts.
“If there were an issue about schools or roads, Gary would be right up there and not afraid to speak out,” she said. “He wasn’t always popular with people, but he stuck to what he believed.’’
In 1992, the Sons of the American Revolution awarded Mr. Kayakachoian its Sons of the American Revolution Silver Good Citizenship Medal for his outstanding service to the community, specifically recognizing his eight-year campaign to restore recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance at Town Meetings.
Michael Robbins, a Brookline Republican who was a member of Town Meeting for about 5o years, said Mr. Kayakachoian was “very pertinacious person’’ with excellent ideas and a good understanding of town government.
“I liked him, and we usually got on very well,” Robbins said. “He was a very bright person. Sometimes he would bring out points that normally were not made very clear.’’
Mr. Kayakachoian was passionate about the issues that captured his attention.
“Gary loved the United States, and he hated those who disgraced the flag,’’ Dupont said. “I can see him now in the hallway, fidgeting with his tie, irritated over a story about a flag burner or maybe an elected official in Brookline he suspected of some nefarious deed, like the intent to jack up taxes or fees like trash pickup.’’
He was also a frequent caller to radio talk shows.
“When I would hear the host say, ‘Gary from Brookline, you’re next,’ I would boost the radio volume and get ready for three to five minutes of Gary K, always good stuff, whether subject matter was Brookline Ave. or Penn Ave., ’’ said Dupont.
But when it came to the Globe, Mr. Kayakachoian did not let his strong views color his journalism, said former Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis, a Brookline resident.
“Gary was quite conservative, though a populist at heart, but his political beliefs did not affect his coverage,’’ Dukakis said.
Globe sportswriter John Powers said Mr. Kayakachoian was a relentless worker at the Globe. “I was never in the Globe when Gary wasn’t there.’’ Powers said.
In the newsroom, Mr. Kayakachoian loved “office gossip,’’ Dupont said. “Who was going where? Who got promoted? Whose nose was out of joint? What stories we nailed. What stories we failed, often his longer list of the two.’’
Mr. Kayakachoian’s last job was manning the Globe’s radio room, where he kept editors aware of breaking news coming in on local and police radios and wire service machines.
“[Gary] had a great ear for police scanners,’’ said Bill Brett, former director of photography at the Globe. “He could distinguish a call that would be well worth checking and worthwhile covering and the ones that were not.”
Garabed Kayakachoian was born in Lawrence, the only child of Hagop and Hamest Kayakachoian. During the Great Depression, when the area mills closed, the family went to stay with relatives in New York, where Garabed was an office boy at The New York Times for about two years.
The family returned to Lawrence in the early 1940s, and he graduated from Lawrence High School in 1944.
In 1955, he married Cecilia Melad, who said she liked his courtliness and found it hard to resist his persistence. “He just wouldn’t give up, and when I went out with him, he was a perfect gentleman,” she said.
Mrs. Kayakachoian said her husband “lived and breathed the Globe.’’
Their son, Gary, said his father “had a nice way with people in times of sorrow.’’
He would like to be remembered as “a straight shooter,” his son said. “If he promised to do something, he would do it.’’
Gary said his father was a baseball fan, but the two parted ways on allegiance. “He liked the Yankees; I liked the Red Sox,’’ he said.
A service has been held.