'Whitey' Bulger arrested in Santa Monica

Ha! My family is yukking it up big time over email today. We've never quite figured out how close the relation is, but my maternal grandfather -- who has the exact same name as Whitey, James Joseph Bulger -- well, his parents got the fuck out of Boston when he was very young, and wouldn't ever talk about their time there.

This is my favorite detail, which I've seen on stories, but not posted here yet:

Whitey and his girlfriend were living in Apartment 31 under Rosenzweig and Fein:



Rosenzweig and Fein were gangsters back in turn-of-the-century New York...

Says wiki...

The Labor Sluggers War was a 15-year period of gang wars among New York labor sluggers for control of labor racketeering from 1911 to 1927. This began in 1911 with the first war between "Dopey" Benny Fein and Joe "The Greaser" Rosenzweig against a coalition of smaller gangs and continuing on and off until the murder of Jacob "Little Augie" Orgen by Louis "Lepke" Buchalter and Gurrah Shapiro in 1927.

 

I'm thinking it's unlikely, but does anyone think Whitey may have also been the "Geezer Bandit"?

 

Admittedly the booking shot and that photo are not great, but they definitely look alike.

 

just finished reading it: called Hitman The Untold Story of Johnny Martorano. Pretty entertaining -- blood drips off every page. There's like two acts of violence per page.

 

http://twitpic.com/5fwagp
Booking photo from WBUR much clearer.

 

For an 81-year-old on the run forever, he doesn't look that bad.

 

Boston would have toppled into the ocean had that happened.
Whitey's been my obsession ever since I lived in the North End. Obviously he wasn't from there, but there were about two degrees separation. I briefly dated a Boston cop with the same name as Bulger's crooked FBI handler, and from him learned much about Boston's incestuous, fascinating underbelly.

 

Why? When, how? So curious.

 

After spending some time in Boston I too caught the Whitey obsession. Reading "Black Mass" further peaked my interest.

In many ways Bulger is as iconic a figure to Bostonians as Bobby Orr,Ted Williams, Hondo, Yaz,Larry Bird, and Big Pappi.

In the 80's half the male population of New England dressed in the Southie tough guy look- Barracuda jacket with shamrock and collar up. Everybody seemed to know somebody who knew Whitey.

 

I didn't realize she caught up with him after he skipped town. I assumed she was with him all along:

 

I also wonder if the new ads an media attention didn't cause someone who had long know their identities to drop a dime on them.

If you think they're going to get busted anyway, why not collect the reward money.

 

Greig was with him most of the time. He picked her up less than a year after he fled town.