Brick and clapboard rowhouses climb a hillside above a former navy yard, where The Town opened with a shot of the Bunker Hill Monument.
What Charlestown looks like
Charlestown occupies a hilltop peninsula, its streets narrow and steep between two rises, Bunker Hill and Breed's Hill. Painted wood clapboard triple deckers and brick rowhouses stand shoulder to shoulder on the narrow side streets, bay windows and roof decks breaking up the three storey fronts.
A granite obelisk rises out of Monument Square itself, ringed by an iron fence with a low stone lodge building at its base. Houses of brick and painted clapboard line the streets that climb away from it, three storeys each behind small fenced front yards.
Down the hill, the opens onto a granite seawall and a run of dry docks behind chain link fencing. The destroyer USS Cassin Young sits in one of the docks under a dockside crane, brick storehouses and embedded rail track running the length of the yard behind it. , a brick paved plaza near the yard's main gate, has a pair of large bronze sculptures mounted on the pavement.
Union Street and City Square sit at the base of the hill, near Federal era houses from the 1790s and 1800s on Pleasant Street and Warren Street. , a low clapboard building on Pleasant Street, is one of the oldest taverns in Boston.
Shot in Charlestown
Ben Affleck's The Town used real addresses across Charlestown, from the to a bar built into a storefront on Union Street. Good Will Hunting used on Rutherford Avenue as the exterior of Sean Maguire's college.
The Town
Monument Square and the streets around it, used as themselves rather than dressed for another city.
The Town, 2010
Bunker Hill Monument
The Town opens with a shot of the Bunker Hill Monument in Monument Square. The same production used a bar built into a storefront on Union Street, and a townhouse on Monument Square for Claire's apartment. Barry Playground, on Medford Street under the Tobin Bridge, was another Charlestown location the film used. Street View
Good Will Hunting, 1997
Bunker Hill Community College
Bunker Hill Community College stands in for Sean Maguire's college in Good Will Hunting. The entrance on Rutherford Avenue is the exterior the production used. Street View
Colonial and Federal brick rowhouses climb narrow streets in Society Hill the same way they do around Monument Square, both cities building out of the same period tradition. The blocks off Pine Street and Delancey Street carry the same scale of three storey brick fronts with plain stone lintels. Philadelphia's flatter grid and wider streets show up in any shot pulled back far enough to lose Charlestown's hill. Try searching colonial brick rowhouses now.
Brooklyn Heights sits on a bluff above the harbor the way Charlestown sits above the Navy Yard, with Federal and Greek Revival rowhouses running down narrow streets toward the water. The promenade views of Manhattan across the water are a rough match for the views of downtown Boston from Charlestown's own hill. Brooklyn's brownstone fronts and taller stoops read differently from Charlestown's clapboard and brick in a close shot. Try searching rowhouses above the harbor now.
Portsmouth, New Hampshire
Portsmouth's compact colonial seaport core sits beside its own working waterfront and a naval shipyard across the river, the same pairing of old houses and navy yard fabric found in Charlestown. Its streets run flatter and its houses sit smaller in scale than the hillside blocks around Monument Square. The lack of a comparable hill means Portsmouth works best for street level shots rather than anything that needs the climb toward the monument. Try searching colonial seaport houses now.
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