Boston bar stirs outrage with its mobster mugshots as decor : NPR
The photo of Boston gangster James Whitey Bulger towers over Kenneth Osherow, co-owner of Savin Bar + Kitchen in Boston. Osherow hung a “context” page over the photo, explaining that it was not intended to “celebrate” the gangster, but to “acknowledge a chapter in the neighborhood’s complex and complex history.”
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BOSTON — File this one under “Brawl in a Boston bar“But this isn’t your typical brawl over a jealous boyfriend or spilled beer. This dust-up is all about scenery, and at the center of the problem are some of Boston’s most notorious mobsters: James “Whitey” Bulger, now deceased, and his partner in crime, Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi, now serving a life sentence.
The place is Savin Bar + Kitchen, in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood, where immediately outside the front door, patrons are greeted by a larger-than-life framed photo of Bulger — the mob boss, murderer, bank robber, drug dealer and extortionist — peering quietly out from under his fedora.
“Funny enough, a lot of people said, ‘Oh, he’s very handsome,'” says Savin co-owner Kenneth Osherow.
But that’s exactly what has many residents worried. They see the setting as glamorous and glorifying Bulger and the other gangsters. The restaurant, they say, should not serve such an unsavory piece of the city’s past.
“Why would you promote people who are thugs and murderers and everything else,” muses Teddy Ryan, an older man sipping wine at the bar.
It is particularly terrible to This location, Ryan said, that was once a bar owned by Eddie Connors, who was one of Bulger and Flemmi’s victims. Connors was shot at a phone booth down the street.
“I was very close to Eddie,” Ryan says. “And these [photos] These are the guys who killed him, so yes, that offends me. Of course yes.”
Connors’ family feels the same way.
“Take the damn thing off,” says his son, Timmy Connors, who was a baby when his father was murdered by the man whose image hangs in a gilded frame on the wall. “We all know what [Bulger] did it, he killed women, innocent people. It was a rat. Who would want someone like Whitey to hang instead? »
While many find Savin Bar + Kitchen’s mob-themed decor offensive, Sheree Hagler (right) and Bre Berry have no objection. “It’s just a vibe,” Hagler says. “I think it looks nice.”
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The photos were posted in the bar last spring without much objection, but complaints have quickly mounted in recent weeks. What started as a conversation at a community meeting escalated online and in real life. Osherow says he and staff endured threatening emails and frightening, direct confrontations.
Server Josh Garner says he was approached last week by an angry man.
“He definitely came in hot, swearing and everything, and saying his friends had been murdered by [those gangsters]”, Garner recalls. He says the man eventually left after he warned him.”[the pictures] You better be there by Tuesday. We are coming back. “
But so far, Savin’s owners have refused to remove the gangster photos, insisting that they do not glorify gangsters, they only reflect Boston’s dark, bloody and well-known past.
“People are definitely overreacting,” Osherow says.
He says he and the staff feel misunderstood and unfairly targeted, largely, they say, because they actually had nothing to do with choosing or installing the mob-themed decor.
Co-owner Kenneth Osherow says the photos of gangsters hanging out at Savin Bar + Kitchen in Boston were never intended to glorify gangsters. He says they were selected and installed by the restaurant makeover salon Secret servicewith Gordon Ramsey, and may soon be replaced due to complaints from neighbors.
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Instead, it was the whole restaurant makeover show. Secret service with celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, who surprised Savin with the makeover last April.
“Savin Bar + Kitchen desperately needed a new, cohesive identity, so our renovation team went and gave them one,” Ramsey intones in the episode that aired in August. After the big reveal of the transformation, Ramsey admires the bar’s new decor.
“There’s that old 1970s gangster feel,” he says. “Finally, [Savin] has an identity. There’s nothing like it in this neighborhood, so this should stand out for all the right reasons. »
Of course, it didn’t really happen that way.
Some have compared the controversy surrounding Savin’s display of old-time gangsters to the debate swirling around old statues of Confederate generals. But Osherow insists it’s not analogous at all.
“If you put a statue in a park, let’s say, you’re doing it because it’s a famous person that you want to glorify. That’s a no-brainer. You’re trying to say that this is a good person,” he says. “Our photos were not posted to say that these people were good people or that they were heroes. It is very obvious that they were bad people and criminals. identity photos!”
To emphasize the point, Osherow wrote a one-page explanation and pasted it directly onto Bulger’s photo shortly after it was hung last spring. “This is not a tribute,” the note said. “We display this photo not celebrate [these mobsters] but to recognize a chapter in the complex and difficult history of our neighborhood [and the bar that] was at the forefront of a notorious era in the Boston underworld […] By recognizing this past, we remember where we have been and how far we have come. » The note also includes links to more history.
Savin’s chief executive, Angelique Johnson, acknowledges that it would be wrong to simply erase or ignore history, whether it’s the Boston Mafia or, she says, the many Boston streets and schools named after slave owners.
“We can’t change that because it’s ancient history,” she says. “It’s very painful, but that’s how you learn. That’s how you make sure it doesn’t happen again. I don’t want to erase history at all. Children of this generation need to know what happened.”
Regardless, Savin is certainly not the only one interested in the city’s sordid past.
Besides countless books and movies, there are plenty of Mafia merchandise on the market – from T-shirts to trading cards to popular Mafia tours. One in Boston is called “Lobsters and Mobsters,” another has been dubbed “Mobsters Mayhem and Murder,” and yet another promises tourists to visit “the exact spot where men and women were shot, massacred and buried in cold blood.”
It is a continuing source of fascination in Boston and beyond. And even at the Savin bar, there are a lot of fans of gangster photos.
“What’s wrong with them? I think they look nice,” says Sheree Hagler, sharing oysters at the bar with a friend.
“To me, it’s a decoration. It’s just a vibe, and that’s what it is,” she says. “I don’t think it’s that bad. I mean everyone in this world today is just too sensitive.”
But Savin’s owners are increasingly tired of the fight and are now considering a change.
One idea would be to simply replace the photos of gangsters with photos of locals who have done good. The list of candidates includes everyone from actor Mark Wahlberg to the founder of the first national animal rescue league.
Gordon Ramsay’s show did not respond to requests for comment, but Savin’s owners say Ramsay’s team is now eager to put the controversy to rest: They are offering to come and exchange the photos, free of charge.
