while flyers advertising the event were pasted to poles and hung from storefronts in good neighborhoods and thereby elicited donations from people who never intended to actually attend the event , the flyers also saturated the worst of the boston slums , where one was most likely to fi nd the core of the criminal element -- the plug- uglies , the bullyboys , the knuckle- dusters , and , of course , the gusties , the city 's most powerful and fuck- out-oftheir-minds street gang , who headquartered in south boston but spread their tentacles throughout the city at large .