Remember the dingy, tiny apartment that Will Hunting used to live in in the movie Good Will Hunting? It was located on the first floor of a ramshackle building located in the lower end of South Boston.
Well, the second-floor apartment -a two-bedroom, two-bathroom unit is on the rental market for $4,500 per month. Just another example of how much the neighborhood has transformed in the last three decades. Back in 2017, Will’s unit was renovated and put on the market for $729,000.
Good Will Hunting – 26 Years Later
Good Will Hunting put Southie on the map. South Boston was always an under-the-radar, sometimes misunderstood, Irish Catholic working-class neighborhood of Boston. After Good Will Hunting debuted in movie theaters in 1997, people from all over the world caught a glimpse of Southie and fell in love. The story of the broken but lovable orphan/janitor/math genius from Southie, Will Hunting (Matt Damon), and his struggles coming to grips with the reality that he is extraordinary and deserves happiness. He needed to escape the dismal existence of living in Southie.
Flash forward 26 years later, Will Hunting would hardly recognize the Southie of his childhood. We’ve got Starbucks, yoga studios, multimillion-dollar condos and lines galore on the weekends. And he certainly wouldn’t recognize his own apartment – it sold a few years ago for over $700,000.
Now the storyline of Good Will Hunting wouldn’t really make sense in the Southie of 2023, right? Comedian Will Noonan ponders what that plot line might look like!
Lower End homeowner since 2005. Mom of three BPS kids. Friend to all except those who don’t clean up after their dogs and/or who put their trash out in kitchen bags (seriously, people, it’s not that hard to use a barrel). Queen of the Nerds (okay that one is only in my dreams).
I had the honor of having the actors and staff plus director and a scene at my house during filming of “Good Will Hunting” I have 5 rolls of film to prove it. My house is also on the market at 120 I street…..950k This house is also famous Mae’s bakery back in the day, closed sometimes in 1971 or close to that year.
Maureen , I worked with your husband Richie in the District Attorneys Office back in the day
I think you must have worked with my father!
It’s definitely not a Southie he would recognize, but he would absolutely appreciate it and I think prefer it given some time.
Is it sad to say that in many ways I prefer the new Southie? People aspire to do great things here now. When I was growing up, people aspired to survive. I like the vibrancy. I do hate many of the side effects, though.
I doubt he would because he hated “rich pricks”, had no problem getting with fights, and would have been pushed out of this neighborhood by now.
Southie would not be Southie without MAE’S Bakery. Good people and they made the BEST Jellie Donuts around. My mother used to send me from P St to the Bakery for the Donuts and a few other things. I can still remember the smell. Though I love Jellie Donuts I no longer eat them. My age is getting to be the same as my waist size. I wear black because it makes me look thinner! Right!!!
When the old residents of southie, were pushed out for supposedly new and improved southie residents. You can have the spoiled, rotten, daddy’s money citizens. They have no idea about the struggles
Good will hunting the start of the down fall of the tightest neighborhood on the east coast ?
I think not ! It was the sell out real estate companies and developers. We were born on N and Bantry raised up on east fifth and the 6”six of us went to Saint Bridgids .I brought my kids up here and wouldn’t change it for anything . But that’s out of our control now . The town is gone along with the strongest voter count in the city . Really sad 😞 that our newest neighbors don’t have as much pride in our beloved neighborhood. I hope everyone is respectful for the March 17th festivities.
If you want to take some pride in honoring our vets come on down to the murphy rink 3/17 and 3/18 for the classic Shamrock ☘️ Showdown which supports The Timothy Doc Cook Scholarship benefiting. Southie girls and boys .
Our own sold us out Joe, not a Movie!
…and the leftist dominated Boston City Council eliminated the South Boston voting block by splitting the town in two by way of “Redistricting.” The left finally beat South Boston as they for many years have desired.
And don’t forget forced bussing and Ray Flynn who voted for it when he was running for Mayor.
He would certainly recognize the people over at The D street projects and the heroin addicts hanging on the Wall.
Southie was a Boston Irish stronghold once this movie came out the rich bought it for a song while the native Southie ‘s regretting taking the short money they sold out for. Boston has fallen to the loony left and will never be what made it the most desirable city in the country. San Francisco east coast now a soulless city lost forever.
A so so , pretty much nonsense movie made by two guys from Cambridge which I think made fun of our, not their, neighborhood.
Mae;s jellies the greatest feasted on many in the 50s attending GATEY, CLASS OF 57
The people who live there are not from there.
You’re 1000% right. Th old Southie is gone forever, thanks to good Will Hunting and the Tall Ships coming into Southie. All the yuppies that come to see the tall ships fell in love with what we had here. Before that it wasn’t good enough for them. Now all the old Southie residents are gone and it’s not Southie anymore, it’s Yuppieville now. I wouldn’t move back there if they gave me a place for nothing. I was born and brought up there.