All about Lynn.

There’s a lot going on in Lynn. If you’re not from Massachusetts, you might not have ever heard of Lynn. It used to be quite a popular city, I think mostly manufacturing and mill work. General Electric was big there, and still is, to a certain extent. The downtown, however, is like "no-man’s land". Just barren, empty of people. Not unsafe, necessarily, more like someone came in and stole all the people away.

The buildings in the Central Square area are mostly from the 1890s, etc., and seem to be in good shape.

A couple of years ago, developers started getting interested in the downtown area, seeing it as ripe for a revival. The downtown is right next to (and I mean, right next to) a commuter rail station that goes to North Station, in downtown Boston, in about 17 minutes, so it’s a great location for commuters/residents. Plus, it’s an easy commute by car, down 1A, right through the new $15 billion Big Dig / Ted Williams Tunnel.

I grew up in Topsfield, near Lynn, and my parents were from Peabody, right next to Lynn. They didn’t have a very positive opinion of Lynn, having seen the area fall into disrepair over the years. I didn’t have a very positive opinion, because everytime I went through there all I saw was huge parking garages, and nothing else.

But, I visited up there a couple years ago, and could see that something was about to happen. And, now, it has, to a certain extent.

There are at least a half-dozen projects going on where developers have bought old buildings and are breaking them up into condominiums. They call them "lofts" but in most cases they are just regular apartment-styled homes. A couple have exposed brick and beam, but the majority have been completely fitted out (one agent told me the city requires all brick to be covered over, which is too bad, aesthetically).

Price per square foot up there is maybe $250 - $280, whereas South Boston is about $450, the South End is $500 - $600, and Back Bay is probably around $700. So, you get a lot more for your money.

Quality of life leaves a bit to be desired. Because so few people live in the downtown, there’s no nightlife. The taco place closes at 9:00 PM; beyond that, I haven’t seen any type of retail. You can walk to a Shaws supermarket, if that counts (and it doesn’t).

However, a high-end steakhouse is going in on Oxford Street (which seems a little weird), and each of the new developments has retail / commercial space on the first floor, which means there is the potential for new businesses to move in. Oh, and there’s this great Vietnamese restaurant on Monroe. Plus a little cafe is going in on the first floor of the Keith building (no relation) in Central Square.

So, things are happening in Lynn.