Boston · New York · shot 2005, released 2006 · Martin Scorsese
Two men undercover in one city, and a city undercover too: some of its Boston is New York. Follow him across downtown. Keep your distance, and mind your phone.
Start the tailChinatown to Beacon Hill · at night
Billy follows Colin from a porn cinema through Chinatown, and Colin only knows he is being followed when Billy’s phone rings. Here you follow him across downtown Boston. Close in, hang back, and put the phone on silent before you get near.
He is two steps ahead on Tyler Street. Your phone’s ringer is on.
Billy tails Colin from a porn cinema through Chinatown, and a ringing phone gives him away; the walk from Chinatown to Charles Street is this page’s own route through the film’s Boston.
American Cinematographer: The Departed, Michael Ballhaus (Stephen Pizzello, October 2006)
Tyler Street, steam and lamps
Billy follows Colin from a porn cinema through Chinatown at night, until a ringing phone gives him away.
Public streets. Tyler Street runs south from Beach Street and its gate; Chinatown station on the Orange Line is close by.
Across the Common
Not there yet.
Up to the library
Not there yet.
Under the dome
Not there yet.
Down Charles Street
Not there yet.
Outside Boston, inside somewhere else
Everyone in the film is pretending, and so are the rooms. Many interiors were built on sets in a Brooklyn armory, close to Scorsese’s home in Manhattan. Pull each cover and see where you really are.
Interiors built and shot on sets in the Marcy Avenue Armory; the producer wanted to shoot near Scorsese’s home in Manhattan.
Brooklyn Paper: Mobbed-up Billyburg (6 October 2006)American Cinematographer: The Departed, Michael Ballhaus (Stephen Pizzello, October 2006)
Every door here opens on Boston. For now.
Costello’s bar
17 Charles Street, Beacon Hill, Boston
The front of Costello’s bar is 17 Charles Street: Fitzy and Delahunt watch the street outside, and Billy walks out of it.
A shopfront at the Common end of Charles Street, Beacon Hill’s main street. Look from the pavement.
State police headquarters
19 Staniford Street, Boston
Paul Rudolph’s concrete complex stands in for the state police headquarters. Its outside and its main exterior stair are in the film.
State offices. Walk round the outside on Staniford Street and Cambridge Street for the concrete and the stair.
Sullivan’s apartment
24 Beacon Street, Boston
Sullivan stops to look up at the State House, and its dome is the view from his apartment.
Free docent tours of about 45 minutes run from 10am to 3:30pm, starting in Doric Hall. Groups book ahead on 617-727-3676.
Fort Point · the alley off Farnsworth Street
The film calls it 344 Washington Street, with a hand-drawn sign out front. Delahunt tells Billy another number. Which door do you go to?
Two numbers. One door.
The state’s official film-locations map gives 12 Farnsworth Street as the film’s key location.
A hand-drawn “344” sign was put up out front. Delahunt gives Billy the wrong number, 314, and Billy still goes to the right door.
The real building has no fire escape. The editing gives it one that reaches the alley.
The final scenes on the roof and in the building were filmed here too.
On Location Tours lists 11 and 12 Farnsworth Street among the film’s Boston locations.
Public streets in Fort Point, north of Congress Street. The buildings are private; look from Farnsworth Street and the mouth of the alley.
Billy meets Queenan on the roof of a building the film calls 344 Washington Street. Its door is on the alley between Farnsworth Street and Thompson Place.
The harbour, and a river in Brooklyn
Costello lives above the water and meets the police beside it. The deal goes down in a silo on a New York waterfront, and the X turns up on the bridges at Logan.
Long Wharf, off State Street, Boston
Costello and Captain Queenan face each other on the dock here.
Built between 1710 and 1721, it once reached nearly half a mile into the harbour. The Custom House Block, an 1840s granite warehouse, still stands on it.
Ferries leave from here for Charlestown, Logan Airport, Hull, Quincy and the Harbor Islands.
Open to walk to the plaza at the end. Aquarium station on the Blue Line is at the head of the wharf.
Eighth Street, Charlestown Navy Yard
Costello’s apartment was a real apartment in Charlestown, near the Navy Yard: high up, low-ceilinged, and kept dark so it never feels welcoming.
The building is Flagship Wharf on Eighth Street. Its windows and the water show during Costello’s call with Sullivan.
The Navy Yard opened in 1800 and closed in 1974. Its grounds are open 24 hours, entry is free, and USS Constitution lies there.
A private home in a residential building: named here and kept off the map. The Navy Yard around it is open 24 hours and free.
Logan International Airport, East Boston
Ballhaus used the bridges between Logan’s terminals, with their X-shaped crosspieces, for a tense scene.
The X is a motif taken from John Alton’s camerawork on T-Men: when you see an X, trouble is near.
The walkways link the terminals and are open to anyone. The Blue Line and the Silver Line reach the airport.
Red Hook Grain Terminal, Columbia Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn
The two gangs meet inside the empty silos of a former grain depot in Red Hook. One open light overhead made a hot spot between them.
Red Hook’s grain elevator, the Red Hook Grain Terminal, was built in 1922 for the state canal system and stopped working in 1965. It has stood empty since.
Empty and closed. See it from the Red Hook Recreation Center on Columbia Street, or from the Gowanus Expressway and the train viaducts over the canal.
Boston Harbor
Live marketplace results for harbour cruises, many leaving from Long Wharf, with Fort Point, Charlestown and Logan from the water.
Live marketplace results · itineraries change
Compare cruisesThe people
Around them are Martin Sheen as Captain Queenan, Ray Winstone as French, Vera Farmiga as Madolyn Madden, Alec Baldwin as Captain Ellerby and Anthony Anderson as Trooper Brown. William Monahan wrote it from the 2002 Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs, and based Costello on Whitey Bulger. Michael Ballhaus shot it; Howard Shore wrote the score.
Cast, writer, the Infernal Affairs remake, Bulger as the model for Costello, Howard Shore’s score, shooting from 18 April 2005, the $90 million budget and four Oscars including Best Picture.
Michael Ballhaus, director of photography; 104 shooting days.
American Cinematographer: The Departed, Michael Ballhaus (Stephen Pizzello, October 2006)
141 West 54th Street, Manhattan
The Departed had its premiere at the Ziegfeld on 26 September 2006. It opened across the US on 6 October.
The Ziegfeld opened in December 1969 with 1,152 seats. It closed in January 2016 and reopened in November 2017 as the Ziegfeld Ballroom.
The cinema has gone; the building is the Ziegfeld Ballroom, an events space. See the front from West 54th Street.
13 places you can visit, in Boston and in New York. Costello’s apartment in Charlestown is a private home: named here, not on the map.
Pins mark public places; private homes are named but not pinned.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: site · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. Public streets. Tyler Street runs south from Beach Street and its gate; Chinatown station on the Orange Line is close by.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: site · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A public park. Walk up the slope from Tremont Street to the State House on Beacon Street.
General reference · Restricted access · Coordinate precision: site · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. Sargent Hall faces the Common across Tremont Street. The library is for people with a university ID; see the building from the pavement.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. Free docent tours of about 45 minutes run from 10am to 3:30pm, starting in Doric Hall. Groups book ahead on 617-727-3676.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A shopfront at the Common end of Charles Street, Beacon Hill’s main street. Look from the pavement.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. State offices. Walk round the outside on Staniford Street and Cambridge Street for the concrete and the stair.
Tyler Street, Chinatown, Boston
A tense chase was shot on Tyler Street in Chinatown.
Public streets. Tyler Street runs south from Beach Street and its gate; Chinatown station on the Orange Line is close by.
Boston Common, between Tremont Street and Beacon Street
The rugby game between the police and the firefighters was filmed on Boston Common.
A public park. Walk up the slope from Tremont Street to the State House on Beacon Street.
120 Tremont Street, Boston
The top floor of the law school’s library was turned into Sullivan’s apartment. The outside of the building never appears.
Sargent Hall faces the Common across Tremont Street. The library is for people with a university ID; see the building from the pavement.
24 Beacon Street, Boston
Sullivan stops to look up at the State House, and its dome is the view from his apartment.
Free docent tours of about 45 minutes run from 10am to 3:30pm, starting in Doric Hall. Groups book ahead on 617-727-3676.
17 Charles Street, Beacon Hill, Boston
The front of Costello’s bar is 17 Charles Street: Fitzy and Delahunt watch the street outside, and Billy walks out of it.
A shopfront at the Common end of Charles Street, Beacon Hill’s main street. Look from the pavement.
19 Staniford Street, Boston
Paul Rudolph’s concrete complex stands in for the state police headquarters. Its outside and its main exterior stair are in the film.
State offices. Walk round the outside on Staniford Street and Cambridge Street for the concrete and the stair.
Stay
A hotel on Long Wharf, the dock where Costello and Queenan meet.
Boston waterfront
The hotel on Long Wharf itself, the dock where Costello and Queenan face each other. Ferries to Charlestown and the Harbor Islands leave from the wharf, and Aquarium station is at its head.
See the hotelGo there
Walking tours past the Common and the State House, and harbour cruises from Long Wharf.
Downtown Boston
Live marketplace results for Freedom Trail walking tours, which start on the Common and pass the State House. None is built round this film; check each route.
Live marketplace results · itineraries change
Compare toursBoston Harbor
Live marketplace results for harbour cruises, many leaving from Long Wharf, with Fort Point, Charlestown and Logan from the water.
Live marketplace results · itineraries change
Compare cruisesWhat’s on
Free weekday tours of the State House, the view from Sullivan’s window.
Checking current event dates…
Take it home
An original 2006 one-sheet from our store, the soundtrack and the score, and the book about Bulger.
Original 2006 US one-sheet, 27 × 40 in (68.8 × 101.6 cm), rolled, mint. Available framed.
In stock
View posterVarious artists · CD, Warner Sunset Records, 2006
The songs from the film, released in the US on 7 November 2006.
Live marketplace search · listings and condition change
Find a copyHoward Shore · CD, New Line Records, 2006
Howard Shore’s guitar-led score, released on 5 December 2006.
Live marketplace search · listings and condition change
Find a copyDick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill · PublicAffairs
The 2000 account of Whitey Bulger and the FBI. William Monahan based Costello on Bulger.
Find the bookDates, prices, rooms and stock change: confirm with the provider before you travel or buy. A stay or tour is described as a filming location only where the card says so.
Every place and moment behind this page, with sources.
14 of 14 places · 14 of 14 Moments
Tyler Street, Chinatown, Boston
Billy follows Colin from a porn cinema through Chinatown at night, until a ringing phone gives him away.
Boston Common, between Tremont Street and Beacon Street
Police and firefighters play rugby on Boston Common.
120 Tremont Street, Boston
Sullivan’s apartment is the top floor of a law library.
24 Beacon Street, Boston
Sullivan looks up at the State House, and its gold dome fills his window.
17 Charles Street, Beacon Hill, Boston
Fitzy and Delahunt watch Charles Street from the door of Costello’s bar, and Billy walks out.
19 Staniford Street, Boston
Rudolph’s concrete stair and walls play the state police headquarters.
Long Wharf, off State Street, Boston
Costello and Queenan face each other on the dock.
Farnsworth Street at Thompson Place, Fort Point, Boston
Billy meets Queenan on a roof at “344 Washington Street”; a wrong number from Delahunt gives Billy away, and the film ends in the same building.
Logan International Airport, East Boston
A tense crossing on the airport’s walkways, under X-shaped crosspieces.
Eighth Street, Charlestown Navy Yard
Costello calls Sullivan from his apartment above the water in Charlestown.
180 Prince Street, SoHo, New York
Costello’s bar, inside: a SoHo bistro playing a Boston bar.
355 Marcy Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
The headquarters, apartments and offices are rebuilt on sets in a Brooklyn armory.
Red Hook Grain Terminal, Columbia Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn
Costello’s crew and the other gang meet inside the empty silos of a grain depot.
141 West 54th Street, Manhattan
The film has its premiere at the Ziegfeld in Manhattan.
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
