Anyone who lived in Lynn more than 40 years ago heard stories or witnessed Fourths of July when bonfires raged and buildings burned. It’s easy to find someone who can remember when city Public Works crews crisscrossed the city in the days leading up to the Fourth dismantling bonfire piles and checking on vacant buildings.
At least one informed source recalled “sparkies” with their police radios gathering in the city’s center and primed and pumped to rush off to a fire as soon as they heard an emergency transmission crackle across the airwaves.
Time-travel back to 1978 and the Independence Day holiday weekend when firefighters fought eight fires across the city with a Daily Evening Item news report attributing seven of the blazes to arson.
Vacant buildings were the common denominator for investigators seeking out the people responsible for setting the fires. A 13-year-old boy was charged with delinquency by reason of arson in connection with a fire in an abandoned Green Street apartment house.
Firefighters fought a blaze in a vacant Boston Street building and another fire in a Lewis Street building that was vacant. Vacant buildings on South Street also burned on the 1978 Independence Day weekend.
The City Council within a month declared war on derelict building owners, vowing to publish the owners’ names in the Item and boycott banks that held notes on abandoned buildings and refused to secure the structures.
The fire debate echoed the anger surrounding the mass home foreclosure wave following the 2008 housing market collapse that spurred mortgage protection proposals by councilors.
The Fourth of July fires fueled councilors’ anger and the elected officials grew more incensed when a July 25 fire destroyed three Newhall Street buildings.
Midway through the building debate, former city Superintendent of Buildings Arthur Coates unveiled an embarrassing admission when he said the city had no money in its building demolition account for three months, rendering it toothless when it came to putting the enforcement bite on bad building owners.
When it came to cracking down on building fires, councilors sounded like townspeople in a Western call for a posse to be formed and ride out to catch the villain. They proposed mobilizing the Auxiliary Police Force to keep an eye on vacant buildings and shoo away arsonists.
Former Police Chief S. Craft Scribner poured cold water on the idea. Not to be deterred, councilors waged their battle against delinquent building owners into the fall of 1978 even as arsons continued destroying buildings across the city.
Strong enforcement and a state-of-the-art fire department have tamped down fire frequency in Lynn. But here’s hoping this Fourth of July doesn’t send fire crews racing into Lynn’s streets to battle fires and save lives.
Let’s be responsible and stay safe.