But this a a movie set in Salem, Massachusetts, that portrays a very Hollywood version of Salem. Only a sliver of the outdoor scenes was actually shot in Salem. The downtown scenes are from the neighboring town of Marblehead. The haunted house is also Marblehead. The homes of Hubie and other characters I'm not sure about, but they don't look like Salem. That leaves only the shots of the Salem Witch Museum, Salem Common, and a flash of the Essex Street pedestrian mall.
The real Salem isn't the small New England town that the film portrays. It is a dense and diverse city. Some of its characteristics eclipsed by the Halloween fame include:
- Salem is home to a large population of immigrants from the Dominican Republican, spread both throughout the City and also concentrated in the Point neighborhood. The Point housed past waves of immigrants working in industrial mills. Today it is home to the Punto Urban Art Museum--a concentration of lively outdoor murals that draw visitors to the neighborhood.
- Salem is a postindustrial city. It was home to manufacturing facilities for national companies like Parker Brothers board games and Sylvania electronics, as well as many leather and textile mills. All of these establishments left Salem decades ago, leaving behind industrial contamination. Over the years, these sites have been cleaned up and given new life. Parker Brothers is now a large apartment complex. Sylvania is Salem State University's Central Campus. Other sites have been claimed for new housing development with easy access to Boston via Salem's downtown train station.
- Salem State University, with its 8,000 students, is located in South Salem, about 1.5 miles south of downtown.
- Salem is a small City with a very big museum. Surrounded by for-profit Halloween themed museums, the Peabody Essex Museum is Salem's real museum. It holds over a million artistic and historic items and recently added a new wing with the backing of a $650,000,000 capital campaign.
- Salem's real downtown is a real downtown. It includes shops, restaurants, coffeeshops, bars, breweries, offices, condos, apartments, hotels, courthouses, a homeless shelter, parking garages, and several parks.
- As a City, Salem has its share of challenges. It has some crime, poverty, and homelessness.
So, Salem doesn't belong to Hollywood. There is an authentic Salem that belongs to the people who live, work, or go to college there.
