Stolen South End bar memento honoring deceased owner has been returned
The piece of memorabilia honoring a deceased South End bar owner will soon be back where it rightfully belongs.
A fireman’s hat was nabbed off the walls of The Kartal last weekend, the bar owners told Boston 25 News on Wednesday. The Kartal opened on Tremont Street four months ago in the spot previously occupied by the Boston Eagle. The fireman’s hat was just one of several pieces of memorabilia honoring the spot’s previous tenant, The Boston Eagle, one of Boston’s longest-running LGBTQ+ establishments.
The hat was returned Saturday after somebody noticed the hat at a house party, owner Elizabeth Georgantas told Boston 25 News.
Eagle statues are on display in different areas of the bar, and a memorabilia wall pays tribute to the late owner of the Boston Eagle, Jack Repetti. The owner of the Eagle for more than 40 years, Repetii died in November after a battle with cancer.
“It was a way for me to still have Jack here and for everyone who comes here to have a piece of Jack,” said Elizabeth Georgantas.
Georgantas said she was most heartbroken to pass along the news to Repetti’s surviving partner Leo.
He now sits at Kartal every night at the bar that he and Repetti once operated together for over four decades.
“We were together for 50 years,” he told Boston 25 News. “I walk around the house talking to him, and I ask why he died.”
The theft of an item that doesn’t have a price tag follows an ongoing pattern of people stealing things from inside the bar. Eighteen table lamps were also recently lifted from the bar.
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