American Hustle | Federal Street, Salem — The Courthouses Where the Sting Comes Due

The roundup at the end — the part of the story that was real before it was a film, when Abscam turned from an FBI fantasy into indictments — was shot on a single block of Federal Street in Salem, between Washington and North.

Two courthouses stand there. The Old Granite Courthouse of 1841 is severe Greek Revival, built to look inevitable, the way a verdict is supposed to feel. Beside it the Superior Court went up in 1862 as an Italianate building and was later remodeled toward Richardsonian Romanesque, so its stone reads heavier and darker and considerably less reasonable. The block has been a National Register historic district since 1976, expanded in 1983, and the houses framing the courts mostly date between 1810 and 1900 in Italianate, Second Empire and Colonial Revival.

Both court buildings sit empty now, awaiting redevelopment, which lends the street an odd hush for a place that processed Essex County's crimes for a century and a half. Come in late afternoon, when the granite turns orange and the windows go black. Salem sells witches four blocks east. This block sells the colder thing that comes after the confession.