Talk:Lynn, Massachusetts
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Good Sheet, Kev.
I feel that as a native, I ought to try and explain that conspicuously small collection of "Firsts" that the city is supposedly known for.
In the very early 90s, the city of Lynn created an advertising campaign to offset the city's stagnating image as a depressed, crime-ridden satellite urban area. This was the "City Of Firsts" campaign.
Among the numerous Lynn Firsts that were touted were:
- Lydia E. Pinkham - First woman in advertising (and first woman in mass-marketing)
- First baseball game played under artificial light
- First dance academy in the U.S.
- First tannery in the U.S.
- First air mail delivery in the U.S.
Unfortunately, after a few short years, the majority of these claims were found to be inaccurate. For example, the first air mail delivery in the U.S. apparently occured on Long Island (link (http://www.newsday.com/extras/lihistory/specguid/specgui1.htm)), a year before Lynn's claimed event. The first baseball game under artificial light apparently occured in Indiana (link (http://www.hammondindiana.com/May2002news.pdf)). And on top of it, Lydia Pinkham (for whom there is a building named in town) turned out to be a snake oil peddler (thanks in part to a History Channel (http://www.historychannel.com) documentary a few years later on snake oil which featured Pinkham prominently. See also Patent medicine).
The "City of Firsts!" perhaps was the start of a series of rather bad attempts by city officials and employees to improve the city. Circa 1992, the city installed false plexiglass storefronts on Union Street, in an attempt to literally cover up the nagging loss of commerce in the city's main transportation square. As of 2002 most of the 6 original false fronts were still there, quite ironically covered in pigeon poop and in disrepair. (Not surprisingly, the storefront idea was conceived by a city worker who lived in the semi-affluent neighboring town of Swampscott, Massachusetts.)
A large, new-fab, multi-level parking structure built by the MBTA at the commuter rail station near downtown in the late 1980s likewise never materialized into a draw for local commerce. The available commercial space in the structure was instead rented by the nearby community college; and despite being free, the lot is never remotely near capacity.
Progress made in turning Lynn in to a technological center for the North Shore in the late 1990s and early 2000s was stunted by the burst of the dot-com bubble. See Lynn Cyber District (http://lynncyberdistrict.com/).
Despite being a developed urban center in close proximity to Boston, Massachusetts, Lynn has no lodging hotels. A short-lived Days Inn at the very entrance to the city closed circa 1992; nearly ten years later the prime-location lot remained untouched save for rampant overgrowth.
On the bright side, Lynn's main highway, the Lynnway (MA. Rt. 1A), rivals the Automile in car dealerships and car services, and leads to one of the better looking parts of town down by the waterfront on the way to Nahant, Massachusetts and Swampscott. Unfortunately, due to a perennial problem of heavy algae accumulation on the beach baking under the summer sun, this is seasonally one of the worst-smelling parts of town.
Lynn's dubiously proud history as the shoe-making capital of the early American colonies is not disputed (except that this legacy was partially shared by Saugus, Massachusetts and Danvers, Massachusetts). Lynn also boasts the largest city-owned park (the 2,200 acre Lynn Woods) in the state and the second largest in the U.S.
While we're talking about Lynn's firsts: For many years in the late 70s and 80s, Lynn residents lamented that Lynn was the first (then only) city where a McDonalds had ever closed (at corner of Union and Baldwin streets; the building still stands today, looking much like a 70s McDonalds). This was repeatedly proven to be untrue, but the mass depression from a faltering commercial economy kept the myth alive for some time.
Another First not included in the city's pride campaign was the establishment of the first Church of Christian Science by city resident and Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy. The Mary Baker Eddy House is a minor city attraction.
- Are you sure about the Lynnway there? It doesn't run along the beach; that's Lynn Shore Drive, which isn't part of Rte. 1A but does smell bad in the summer. AJD 18:24, 19 May 2004 (UTC)
- That's true... Edited... I wonder if any of this Lynn rambling is appropriate for the main page. KeithTyler 19:29, 19 May 2004 (UTC)