# "Dapper" O'Neil is dead at 87



## kwflatbed

*local news updates*
updated
Wednesday, 9:33 AM ​
From the City & Region staff at The Boston Globe

*"Dapper" O'Neil is dead at 87 *




December 19, 2007 09:33 AM

By Tom Long, Globe Correspondent, and Donovan Slack and John R. Ellement, Globe Staff

Albert L. "Dapper" O'Neil, the irascible politician who charmed and offended for 28 years on the Boston City Council, died early this morning at a nursing home in West Roxbury. He was 87.
After a political career that spanned 50 years, O'Neil was one of the last links to an era of colorful, personalized politics that defined Boston in the first half of the 20th century. He served on the Boston Licensing Board and was a political operative for legendary Mayor James Michael Curley. 
"It's the end of an era in Boston politics with the passing of Dapper O'Neil" Mayor Thomas M. Menino said this morning. "He was the greatest storyteller there ever was. The real question is whether all those stories are true."
His friend and former driver, Councilor Stephen Murphy, said that O'Neil died in his sleep after years of deteriorating health. 
"The great irony of dapper was his kindness and generosity to so many people," Murphy said this morning. "At the same time, he fearlessly and deliberately violated the rules of political correctness. He'd say, 'Watch me get them going.'"
Flamboyantly conservative, Mr. O'Neil was defined more by the enemies he made than his political views. At various times, he railed against feminists, gays, and immigrants. He made a career out of his opposition to school desegregation, affirmative action, and other government initiatives he considered social engineering.
He was the only one of 13 city councilors to vote against a local ban on assault weapons and the city's human rights ordinance, which prohibited discrimination against gay men and lesbians.
In the process, Mr. O'Neil seemed to delight in his ability to enrage liberals, who considered him insensitive, at best, and a bigot, at worst. But his stands on issues served to solidify his conservative political base. 
In the 1970s, he lambasted "hippies" from a bullhorn on the back of a pickup truck circling Boston Common. In 1990, after viewing nude photographs at the Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art, he said, "This country's going down the drain. And while there's guys like me in it, I'll put a stop to some of this."
During the 1992 Dorchester Day Parade, he was captured on a home video exclaiming "I thought I was in Saigon for chrissake," while he passed through a Southest Asian part of the city.
Born in Boston he graduated from Roxbury Memorial High School. He attended Suffolk University Law School, but left before graduating to serve in the Army during World War II.
He began his political career as a teenager handing out leaflets for James Michael Curley. He was later the driver for Endicott Peabody, who, as governor in the 1960s, rewarded Mr. O'Neil with a seat on the city's licensing board.
In a story published in the Globe on Nov. 11, 1999, when he lost his City Council election bid to Michael Flaherty, Boston historian Thomas H. O'Connor said, "This is the last hurrah not merely for a man but for the politicking he represents."
He said Mr. O'Neil's career endured, "largely through the kinds of loyalties he built up over 30 years, from people for whom he'd done favors, and they'd never forget him, and they'd talk about him to their relatives. He built a political career on a system of local patronage," said O'Connor. 
"Dapper was colorful and controversial and irascible and shocking," he said. "And in a perverse way, I think there were people who found that style of politics refreshing, shocking. He was willing to take a stand."

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2007/12/dapper_oneil_is.html


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## HousingCop

*A guy who told it like it is. (Remind you of someone?) A great quote and excerpt from WRKO WhiteyWorld A-Z.*

_Boston City Councilor Albert Leo "Dapper" O'Neil was no particular friend of the Bulgers, either ****** or his brother Billy, then the president of the Mass. State Senate. Dapper never attended Billy's St. Patrick's Day breakfast in Southie - "who wants to go someplace where you can't piss for four hours?" he used to say of the crowded affair at the Bayside Club._

*Back in 1995 I ran into Dapper in Bromley Heath. He was looking for a wedding reception at a function hall for his housekeepers daughter. I told him he was not in a great spot and he replied by proudly showing me the 5 shot S&W Chief's Special he was carrying. I told him he only outgunned the gangbangers who were 12 and under with that gun. We had a hearty laugh and agreed with me. He was ALWAYS a friend of the cops. The old dinosaur will be missed.*


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## kwflatbed

*Always a character*

Albert Leo "Dapper" O'Neil was a Boston city councilor for nearly 30 years. Here are some of his more memorable moments, compiled from friends and newspaper reports:
In 1971, the pistol-packing pol threatened to blow the head off a robber he caught breaking into another candidate's campaign office. O'Neil noticed the break-in while driving home on Hyde Park Avenue at 3 a.m. He stopped, grabbed his .38-caliber gun from his glove compartment and surprised the suspect. "Don't reach for your pocket or I'll blow your head off," he told the robber.
During a 1990 council hearing on city violence, O'Neil had to be held back from slugging fellow councilor Charles Yancey. Their long-running feud had worsened that week when O'Neil stopped Yancey from quizzing police about safety issues.
In the mid-1970s, O'Neil stole then-Mayor Kevin White's limo and parked it under the Tobin Bridge, O'Neil's friend and former city councilor Joe Tierney recalled.
In 1992, O'Neil named himself "acting mayor" when then-Mayor Ray Flynn was trapped for 30 minutes in a Mattapan hospital elevator with two priests, city officials and his son.
"I am prepared to settle a lot of old scores," O'Neil declared at the time.

http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view.bg?articleid=1054970

Love him or hate him, Dapper cared about Boston
 By Jessica Fargen
The final vestige of "The Last Hurrah" era of Boston politics vanished...

O'Neil was principal of the old school
 By Howie Carr
Dapper O'Neil was 87 years old when he died yesterday morning, and he never...

*An era in Boston politics ends
as Albert 'Dapper' O'Neil dies*

Dapper O'Neil, whose charming presence and lacerating tongue kept alive for decades a bygone era of Boston politics, died yesterday. Often the top vote-getter in City Council races, Mr. O'Neil became one of the more revered politicians in the city's history with his attentiveness to the smallest needs of constituents, even as his caustic statements about minorities, women, gays, and lesbians made him one of the most reviled. *(By Bryan Marquard, Boston Globe)*


*Photo gallery **'Dapper' O'Neil through the years*

*Kevin Cullen **For Dapper, it was always about politics*


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## kwflatbed

*'The Dap truly was a legend'*

*Hub says goodbye to larger-than-life pol*









Photo by Angela Rowlings 
So Long: The casket of Albert L. 'Dapper' O'neil is carried out of St. Theresa of Avila Church in West Roxbury yesterday.

Friends and family yesterday bid a Christmas Eve adieu to Albert L. "Dapper" O'Neil, the legendary former city councilor known for his bombastic style and stalwart devotion to the "little guy."
The 90-minute funeral Mass at St. Theresa of Avila Church in West Roxbury capped off a weekend of mourning for the 28-year Boston city councilor, whose hallmark dedication to the most mundane of constituent needs was matched by his reputation for controversial statements about minorities, women and gays.
O'Neil, 87, died in his sleep Wednesday at Deutsches Althenheim nursing home in West Roxbury. A World War II veteran, he will be buried on Thursday in Massachusetts National Cemetery in Bourne.
"The Dap truly was a legend," said his nephew, Peter O'Neill of Quincy.
During his eulogy, O'Neill thanked the people who comforted his uncle over the years: Helen T. Skrzowski, his girlfriend of 56 years; Richie Masterson; Lincoln Smith, a city council research assistant; City Councilor at-Large Stephen J. Murphy; vocalist Dottie Dean; and Boston Herald columnist and radio host Howie Carr.
"To Howie, Dap left a note. If he can get to a phone, he'll call you," O'Neill said.
The faces in the pews made up a who's who list of Boston politics including Mayor *Thomas M. Menino*, former Senate presidents William M. Bulger and Robert M. Travaglini, Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley and nearly all the members of the Boston City Council.
O'Neill celebrated the more colorful side of the pol's personality, recounting his recording of the "Irish Belly Dancer" and vocal performances at 46 Beacon Street Club with Dean, whom he referred to as his Madame X. He capped it off by reading the lyrics to "I'll Be Seeing You."
"As Dap would say, 'It's been a great ride,' " O'Neill said.
Menino, who counted O'Neil as a constituent when he was a city councilor, commented on how Dapper kept up with the "Irish sports page" religiously.
"He went to more wakes than most priests, but it was his way of connecting with this constituents," he said. "Dapper, you will always be my consituent."
Bulger said he first heard of O'Neil from his mother, Gertrude Connolly O'Neil, who sung the praises of her son from behind a cash register at a local cafeteria. Bulger chose to refer to O'Neil by his first name Albert, instead of Dapper, the popular moniker by which he was best known.
He said O'Neil's public comments and persona overshadowed his "quiet devotion to the needs of many, many people."
"He did so on a day-to-day basis. To O'Neil, such an occupation was noble. It was so worthwhile," Bulger said.

http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view.bg?articleid=1062644


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## Guest

Dapper was a good guy. I met him at a restaurant in Southie a few years ago and he made me laugh by trying to put the moves on me.


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## Guest

CHICwithBADGE said:


> Dapper was a good guy. I met him at a restaurant in Southie a few years ago and he made me laugh by trying to put the moves on me.


Yeah, he was legally blind in his later years.


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## Andy0921

Delta784 said:


> Yeah, he was legally blind in his later years.


:L: Zinger!


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## Guest

CHICwithBADGE said:


> Dapper was a good guy. I met him at a restaurant in Southie a few years ago and he made me laugh by trying to put the moves on me.


musta had an affinity for dudes with no balls posting under the guise of a chick............


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## id1811xecj

kwflatbed said:


> *'*During his eulogy, O'Neill thanked the people who comforted his uncle over the years: *Helen T. Skrzowski, his girlfriend of 56 years*; Richie Masterson; Lincoln Smith, a city council research assistant; City Councilor at-Large Stephen J. Murphy; vocalist Dottie Dean; and Boston Herald columnist and radio host Howie Carr.


That is a long time to date.

I met him several times over the years and always have fond memories. He was funny.


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