Learning about Swampscott’s Olmsted Historic District provides an insight into that era almost a century ago when the wealthiest of the wealthy owned great swaths of land surrounding huge homes.
Enoch Reddington Mudge’s (sounds like the name of someone with a lot of money) estate covered 130 acres with the manor house sitting on the prominence now occupied by First Church with its panoramic ocean view. The estate grounds dipped and rolled all the way back to what is now Paradise Road.
Similar big estates lined Lynn Shore Drive and other coastal stretches with lawns rolling down almost to the beach. Supposedly the referendum to create the drive was a source of controversy with opponents and proponents vocal in their viewpoints on why the road should transit waterfront property.
Greg Page asked me about the origin of the Fay Estates and the size of the estate when it was laid out. A resident expert said Fay Estates for years attracted police officers and firefighters looking for local homes. By the same token, my source said Veterans Village was home to “the Sacred Heart crowd” with General Electric employees buying West Lynn homes and worshipping in the Boston Street church.
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It’s sad enough to see veterans posts around the city and in neighboring communities close but who is going to shoulder the responsibility of carrying on the ethnic traditions honed in parish churches and other local neighborhood community gathering places? There was a time when you could divide Lynn into Polish, Italian, French and Irish neighborhoods and point to the institutions carrying on the traditions and celebrations of those cultures.
Cultural institutions still survive but are there enough young people staying in the city and carrying on traditions and passing them on to a new generation? I once asked someone why they did so much on behalf of their particular faith and they replied, “Why don’t you turn the question around?” I asked them what they meant and they suggested I ask them about all the good things their faith does for them.
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I heard Joe Driscoll retired from the city personnel office and headed down to his beloved Florida. His exodus represents yet another drain on the institutional knowledge the city has enjoyed for years. Fire Chief Stephen Archer put it well the other day when he talked about the prospect of the Fire Department hiring 20 new firefighters and the enthusiasm older department members have for training and mentoring new people coming in to learn the job and the city.
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The always-keen and sharp-witted Jo Sullivan checked in to provide some historical context for Jimmy Carter’s visit to Lynn in 1978. City Hall was ground zero for the presidential visit but she said anti-apartheid protesters demonstrated just a block away by the library.
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Another resident expert cited the Friends of the Lynn Woods newsletter to note that short-haired weasels, or stoats, are repopulating the woods. They sound like nasty, brutish creatures and it’s good news for canines and animals of the two-footed variety that the woods have plenty of acres for stoats and other beasts to roam.
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Anybody know why construction trailers are set up on that big chunk of empty land on the Lynnway near Marine Boulevard?