In Boston, a city steeped in history, photographs of well-known local figures decorate the walls of many bars and restaurants: John F. Kennedy is a popular choice, as is Larry Bird, the Celtics great.
But when a restaurant in Savin Hill, a tight-knit section of the city’s Dorchester neighborhood, hung oversize photos of Boston’s most notorious gangsters, James “Whitey” Bulger and Stephen Flemmi, as part of a recent renovation, some residents were appalled. They have pressed the owners — so far unsuccessfully — to take the photos down.
The conflict has spawned civic-association meetings and incensed letters to the editor in local newspapers. And it has made clear that a current of trauma still courses through some neighborhoods, decades after Mr. Bulger terrorized the city.
“There are people still living here who are the daughters and sisters of people Whitey Bulger killed,” said Donna McColgan, who grew up in Savin Hill and lives a few blocks from the restaurant, Savin Bar & Kitchen. “All of us have been affected by him,” she added. “Everyone here has a story. It’s crass and insensitive, and it has done nothing but harm.”
One of the restaurant’s owners, Kenneth Osherow, defended the photos — reproductions of the criminals’ mug shots — in a statement, saying the intent was not to “glorify Whitey Bulger or the violence that scarred Boston,” but to “recognize a chapter in the complex, gritty story of our neighborhood.”
The bar is hardly unusual in tapping into public fascination with organized crime — and with Mr. Bulger. The gangster, who eluded capture for 16 years after fleeing Boston, was an inspiration for Jack Nicholson’s Irish mob boss in the 2006 movie “The Departed,” set in the city. Hundreds of visitors to Boston sign up for “mob tours” every year, intent on seeing the places where Mr. Bulger and his associates lived and preyed on victims.
“Once I mention Whitey, you can see on people’s faces that that’s what they came for,” said Omar Doherty, who owns and operates Boston Crime Tour. “It’s just a bananas story.”
Mr. Bulger’s criminal empire was rooted in South Boston, known as “Southie,” where he was raised. But it cast a shadow across the city, including in Dorchester, then a “rough-and-tumble neighborhood of working-class people trying to survive,” said Ms. McColgan, 74. Some residents became victims of drugs brought in by organized crime. Others were victims of mob violence.
The restaurant’s owners claim a connection to that history. Edward Connors, who owned a bar, the Bulldog Tavern, on or near the site of Savin Bar & Kitchen, was shot to death in a phone booth in Dorchester in 1975. A federal jury in 2013 found Mr. Bulger responsible for killing Mr. Connors and 10 others.
“The Bulldog Tavern was more than just a bar; it was a front-row seat to a notorious era in Boston’s underworld,” the owners said in their statement. “Recognizing history, even the uncomfortable parts, helps us appreciate how far we’ve come.”
Mr. Bulger was sentenced to two life terms but died five years later, beaten to death by other inmates. He was 89.
At his sentencing in Boston, Judge Denise J. Casper spoke of the stain that his “unfathomable” depravity left behind.
“You have over time, and in certain quarters, become the face of this city, and that is regrettable,” she told him. “You, sir, do not represent this city.”
Mr. Flemmi, known as “the Rifleman,” was Mr. Bulger’s literal partner in crime. Now 91, he pleaded guilty to 10 murders in 2003 and is serving a life sentence. At Mr. Bulger’s trial in 2013, Mr. Flemmi testified that he had lured his longtime girlfriend’s daughter to a house so that Mr. Bulger could strangle her.
The photos appeared at Savin Bar & Kitchen this year as part of a makeover staged by the celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay on his reality show “Secret Service.” In the episode, Mr. Ramsay focused on easing friction between the restaurant’s staff members and owners, but he also unveiled a new look for the interior, including the gangster photos.
“This used to be an old mobster hangout, so it’s got that old 1970 mobster feel,” Mr. Ramsay says in the show, which was filmed in March and aired in August. “There’s nothing like this in the neighborhood, so it should stand out for all the right reasons.”
Some neighbors saw a flagrant wrong instead. When Ms. McColgan contacted one of the business owners, Driscoll DoCanto, about the photos, she said he dismissed her concerns.
Mr. Osherow, the other owner, said in an email that his partner was “blindsided” by her phone call.
“Frankly, we all know the type,” he wrote. “The local busybodies, the self-appointed watchdogs, the yentas with a little too much time on their hands.”
After Ms. McColgan raised the issue at a meeting of the Columbia-Savin Hill Civic Association, an article in The Dorchester Reporter set off a media frenzy. In the neighborhood, where gentrification has priced out some working-class families and newer residents do not feel the same connection to the past, opinion has been mixed.
“Freedom of speech must always prevail,” one person wrote on Facebook. “That said, having known some of his victims, I will choose not to go there.”
After the complaints began, the owners attached a laminated explanation to the frame on Mr. Bulger’s mug shot. In it, they reference the history of the site, and note that the photos are not “smiling portraits” or a “tribute” to his actions, but “a reminder of the consequences.”
Maria Monteiro, 65, who has owned a hair salon, DJady’s, in Savin Hill for decades, said she would have responded differently.
“I serve the community, so I listen to their concerns,” she said. “That’s why I’ve been here for 40 years.”
As of Sunday morning, customers arriving at the restaurant were still met by Mr. Bulger’s steely stare. But there were signs that the photographs’ days might be numbered. After the outcry began, producers for Mr. Ramsay’s TV show offered to help find alternative decor, Mr. Osherow said in an email, “if we decide to swap out any of the current pieces.”
Any replacement would be similar, he said: historical, black and white, “just with a slightly more positive spin.”
Jenna Russell is the lead reporter covering New England for The Times. She is based near Boston.
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