BOSTON—The late Congressman Joseph J. Moakley (D) would like the big field of candidates seeking to replace him in this Fall’s special election, says Fred Clark, a longtime Moakley aide.

Moakley’s death this spring after a protracted battle with leukemia kicked off the first open race in the Ninth Congressional District since the Nixon administration and has drawn national attention to the nine contenders—seven Democrats and two Republicans—seeking to represent the increasingly diverse district, a mixture of suburban communities and the working-class neighborhood of South Boston popularly known as “Southie.”

At stake is more than just a congressional seat—but the identity of one of Boston’s most storied neighborhoods. Only one candidate, State Sen. Stephen F. Lynch (D), lives in Southie. All the rest of the candidates live in the district’s suburbs outside Boston.

If Lynch loses, it would mark the first time in 73 years that the Ninth’s representative did not live in South Boston—and it would mark the first time in more than a century that no resident of Boston served in Congress, says Boston historian Thomas H. O’Connor, a history professor at Boston College.

The Legend

Many in Boston feel this Fall’s election as the ending of a political era for the city—an era of old-fashioned local politics promoted by Moakley and his close friend the late former Speaker of the House Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill (D), who represented the neighboring Eighth District from 1954 to 1988.

“Moakley himself was an institution, a man who acted as a champion for the young Irish working class,” says Michael Dempsey, a political science student at Suffolk University who studies Boston politics. “There is no way any of these guys running could hope to fill Moakley’s shoes.”

“[Moakley] can’t be replaced. He is from another era,” says Clark, who as a former Moakley campaign manager and district staff director worked with the congressman for 18 years.