Following great success with “Good Will Hunting” and “Gone, Baby Gone,” Cambridge-bred actor Ben Affleck adds another home-turf production, “The Town,” to his resume. This cop drama, which hits theaters Friday, is set in Charlestown, a Boston neighborhood that — for the purposes of the film, at least — is home to an inordinate amount of bank robbers.
Charlestown is better known as the site of the Revolutionary War’s bloody Battle of Bunker Hill, which is marked by a beautiful granite monument. It’s also the location of the historic United States Navy Yard, built in 1798, but was first settled in 1628.
Charlestown lies on a peninsula, flanked by the Charles and Mystic Rivers, a mile from North Station T.
Architecturally, it’s a Colonial charmer with clapboard row houses lining narrow side streets. Jim Moran, who grew up in suburban Lexington and works in Waltham as a Web consultant, now calls Charlestown home.
“I had been familiar with it for years before I moved there,” Moran says. “It’s close to downtown Boston, especially the North End and other prime attractions. It’s near the ocean, and I can often smell the sea. My rent is pretty reasonable,” he adds.
There’s one thing he detests, though: “Parking, parking and parking rank as the top three things I hate about Charlestown.”
