‘Gangland Boston’, a book as a ”travel guide to the Geography of Boston’s underworld gang” is written by Emily Sweeney who graduated from the Northeastern University. She is an award winning Boston Globe Reporter. She naturally comes to the main subject where she talks about James ‘Whitey’ Bulger who reigned as the king of crime. The name is famous as after a 16-year manhunt, a sensational trial, and a movie starring Johnny Depp, it can’t be hidden.
The prohibition of the loose bands of street punks elevated into the bands of organised crimes. This was the exact case for Gustin gang, which was made of Irish American thieves which established the Irish Gang culture that eventually produced Bulger. Sweeney says that the Bulgers were just a part of her life. Frank and Stevie Wallace were tailboard thieves. They were ruthless teenagers who high jacked trucks at intersections. After the prohibition laws they started “rum running” and the trade of illegal liquor. But both their lives ended with disastrous circumstances.
Another war of the city’s two Irish Gangs, the Winter Hill gang in Somerville and a rival gang in Charlestown, was witnessed. Although the shooting and the massacre took place in front of many eyes, there was no witness. Many other associated with the gang were killed and jailed due to their trials. Sweeney calls this an example of ‘disorganised crime’. Among all these carnages was James “Whitey” Bulger. It was a bit of a luck with which he succeeded his crime career. He was serving a nine year prison for bank robbery when the Irish Gang war wiped out most of his competition. Sweeny narrates very less about Whitey in her book because his vicious career had already been narrated and described in novels, news, journals, and articles of that time.
Akshara Palshetkar