Publicover's
resilience is reflected in the city around him. Publicover recalls back
in the late '70s, when he was working Media Relations under Mayor S.
Lester Ralph, Somerville was not even being considered to host a stop,
which was supposed to run down Massachusetts Avenue through Cambridge
and into Arlington, bypassing Somerville. He and several others got the
MBTA committee to hold a hearing at Somerville High School. "We said
'why can't Davis Square have the Red Line?'" he recalls "And they
laughed at us. They thought that was hilarious. Back then it was called
Slumerville and Scumerville, not totally undeserved. At that point,
this square was half-boarded over with empty storefronts. The railroad
still went through the middle of the square. On any given day you could
smell 30 cars full of cows and sheep and lambs a half hour after it
went through."

However, the MBTA would end up calling them back,
as a few months later, the Town of Arlington voted it down. "They
looked at it as they were the good people. And they didn't want the
kind of people coming in on the Red Line coming to their city. So all
of a sudden the T had nowhere to go. We got it. And what it changed is
what you see here today. From the square that was half-empty, barren,
nothing left. Had been a great square in its day, and it's right back
to where it was 50 years ago."

Founding The Somerville News in
1980 on 2,000 dollars and a wing and a prayer, Publicover began a
campaign in journalistic excellence which would see him and his paper
win awards from the Independent Free Papers of America. Publicover
became a staple of the Somerville breakfast table with his column
"Bluntly Speaking," which would sometimes face controversy. Publicover
remembers a specific case from the 1980s from his column titled "Mama,
let your kids grow up." He wrote about a case of a woman on his street,
who he noticed wouldn't look after her children, who would play in the
road. "I thought, 'One of these days one of them is gonna be hit by a
car.' Sure enough one day some car comes flyin' down the street." He
was roused outside to see the woman in grief, loudly accusing the
driver of killing her child. "My only thought was, 'Lady, where were
you all this time? It wasn't the driver's fault. Where were you? You
never watched your kids. You never kept an eye on the people on the
street, and now you're screaming at the driver.' And I wrote a column
exactly the opposite of what would normally be written, making it very
clear that in my opinion the mother was to blame; she should not be
blaming the driver." The column, while seemingly harsh, won him his
first award from the IFPA, and helped reinforce his uncompromising
brand of truth. "I said what I thought and I got in a lot of trouble.
And I didn't care. I knew half the city of Somerville and I'd listen to
the flak I got back or the good I got back whenever I did a story."

However,
Publicover would get his flak, sometimes on issues close to home. In
1988, Publicover openly declared his homosexuality. While already a
major proponent of AIDS awareness, Publicover's status opened him up to
animosity from local bigotry. "I had called the Chief of Police, who
was a friend of mine, I said 'look I don't want anything, but I just
want you to know what's going on, I'm getting ten to twelve threatening
phone calls a day and they [say they] are all going to kill me,
etcetera, etcetera.'" The Police Chief, frightened for Publicover's
safety, said he wanted to put 24 hour protection on him. "No,"
Publicover responded, "have a cop run down the street once every day.
I'm not having 24 hour protection. I think it's all talk. And it was,
I'm still here. They didn't beat my head in with a baseball bat."

In
1992, a year in which Publicover suffered the loss of a his partner of
several years, John, he was pleasantly surprised when he was voted the
Face of Gay Pride in New England by the readers of Bay Windows, beating
out Congressman Barney Frank and a list of nineteen other names in a
write-in campaign. Publicover only found out about the contest after
the editor-in-chief called him up to ask if he had rigged the
competition. While initially confused, Publicover realized his tireless
work in the community had led to his iconic status. "At Wednesday I was
at the Wednesday Dinner program that I ran. On Thursday I was at the
Thursday Night Program that I ran. On Tuesdays I was at the AIDS food
bank that I ran. At Wednesdays I was at the living center. On Sundays I
was at the living center for the brunch that they did. I was never
stopping. I was on TV, I was on the radio, and I was the typical
grassroots guy that everybody knew. People had heard of Barney Frank,
but they knew Bob Publicover.

Not all of Publicover's impact
came through his continuous community outreaching. "Most of our
stories, if there were tough things that needed to be done, never got
in the paper," Publicover admits. "My theory was that if you needed
something done, you didn't write a story about it,. You called whoever
the person was, a couple officials, and you got it taken care of."

Publicover
recounted a story from the early 1990s in which he came to the aid of
Anthony Fedele, whose sexuality had become the topic slanderous gossip
from one of his rivals within the school system jockeying for the
position of Headmaster. After determining the source of the gossip,
Publicover personally contacted the gentleman, and informed him that
all of Somerville would learn of his dubious actions if he did not
cease. Fedele later got the job, and would work with Publicover
founding the Somerville High School Scholarship Foundation, and served
honorably for 17 years before passing away in 2007 at the age of 70. As
a testament to their dedication, the Foundation's endowment recently
passed the milestone of one million dollars. "He was the best educator
Somerville ever had. We used to fight like cat and dog, but we were
still good friends."

Throughout the years, Publicover has kept
his finger on the pulse of the community in Somerville, and maintains
that only through immersive coverage can the institution of journalism
survive. "You have to know the community, you have to be out there
every day." While few can attest to Publicover's profile, frequenting
coffee shop, public house and municipal forum, he maintains street
presence is the key to effective narrative. "One of the problems that
newspapers today have is that they bring all people from way outside.
There's no one to tell 'em "if you were going to do a story…" Even
now, if you were telling anything in Somerville, I could sit you down,
and fill you in on the last 25 years of background of that story," he
remarks. "It's much more important to talk about what's going on in the
local community, so that people get a better feeling of neighborhood,
by getting into the individual things."