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Lynn residents recite the opening line of the ditty they're all sick to death of
By adamg on Fri, 02/19/2021 - 2:15pm
NBC Boston tries to get to the bottom of that poem, you know the one:
Lynn, Lynn the city of sin
You never come out, the way you came inYou ask for water, but they give you gin
The girls say no, yet they always give inIf you're not bad, they won’t let you in
It’s the damndest city I’ve ever lived inLynn, Lynn the city of sin
You never come out the way you came in.
In February, 1923, the Boston Globe reported (in great detail):
PROBE ORGY IN LYNN
DIAMOND DISTRICT
Men and Women Frolic in Snow
- Policeman's Roll is Lifted
Churches Demand Action
Neighborhoods:
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Comments
WW I Origin
Sounds like it could have been a good time city then, sure ... but also during prohibition. (My elderly mother-in-law thinks that is a part of the origins of the rhyme).
Good time huh swirly....?
“The girls say no, yet they always give in”
Sorry had to say it....;)
I wouldn't know
Her mom would.
You forgot the added verses
Lynn, Lynn, the city of fire
If you're not a pyro
You must be a liar
Lynn, Lynn, everything's wrong
That's why we made up
This silly song
Disclaimer: I was a Lynn resident from 1961 to 1990
what was
what was Lynn like in the 70s.
I know Chelsea's history somewhat.. curious if Lynns is the same.
Lynn in the 1970s went through a string of bad politicians
who tried implementing grandoice plans that fell flat, like the Union Street Walkway and the water tower in East Lynn (whcih we lived beneath) that was built but never used. And of course, the politicians' biggest priority seemd to be trying to come up with new and creative reasoning to block extending the Blue Line into Lynn. The school system was in decline, which was accellerated by a redistricting plan implemented in 1970 and an unwritten policy of holding students back if it was felt they weren't socially ready to be promoted, regardless of what their grades were.
And the tap water was consistently rated among the worst in the state during that time. Not nearly as bad as the more recent situation in Flint, but bad enough that residents would get monthly notices from the water department informing them of the latest 800 syllable mysterious sounding chemical we had never even heard of.
One quibble with your phrasing
I wish people would get out of the habit of saying things like “Lynn in the 1970s went through a string of bad politicians,” and instead say, “The people of Lynn, in the 1970s, chose a string of bad politicians.”
The former exonerates the voters and makes bad government sound like some unfortunate thing that befell the city, rather than the truth, which is that bad government was something that the people actively chose.
In the 70s GE ran 3 shifts a day, with lots of workers
This meant third shifters would fill the bars at 8 am, and others would replace them as the day went on. It was very healthy.
Yes. Growing up in Lynn
my father was one of the few people in our neighborhood that didn't work for GE - either the River Works aircraft engine plant or the West Lynn transformer plant.
Some time this summer ...
... you'll be able to ride your bike on a paved path all the way from Everett to Lynn, through Malden, Revere, and Saugus. http://BikeToTheSea.org
And when you get there, go eat at Tacos Lupita.
Tacos Lupita
Is that a relation/reincarnation of the Tacos Lupita that used to exist in Somerville near Porter Sq?
Yes, it is
(fist pump)
That place was terrific
Maybe on the way back from Newburyport
This will certainly make that ride home from Lynn much more pleasant.
If I have a negative view of Lynn, it probably unfairly derives from my experiences of their transit station, which is pretty horrifying to navigate through and out of.
Fixing that scary station would definitely welcome people heading into Lynn on the train - it could be a real cool food destination if they did.
what's wrong with the Lynn train station?
I've used it a few times, usually with my bike, and didn't see anything obviously wrong with it -- especially compared to decrepit Winchester, inaccessible Belmont, and the awful Newton stations next to the Mass Pike. It's one of the more modern stations in the system.
The hike through the gothic nightmare
To get out of the station you need to bungle around a bunch of abandoned seeming spaces to find the exit to the street. Signage is confusing and incomplete if you are coming from the southbound side.
Unless they fixed this in the last three years - last time I used it it was nasty, poorly lit, etc. with a stench to match for those who don't want to exit through the garage.
(Update: looking at google pics I see the old nastyass stinky portal of hell in 2018, and photos of a new entrance to the street in 2019. GOOD!)
Heads up: serious hill
In my younger, bicycling days, some 40+ years ago, I explored several routes from Cambridge to the North Shore. One route I tried was through Saugus -- on regular city streets, but approximating the B&M Saugus Branch railroad line that is being converted to this bike path. It is a far cry from the sea-level routes through Revere. In fact there is a serious hill in the Cliftondale section of Saugus. Still, this is the route that I usually ended up taking because it avoided the traffic on either the Lynnway or Route 107.
The worst part of the hill was near the old quarries at the Saugus/Revere/Malden line, so it's possible that the rail/bikeway alignment avoids some of this hill.
The city streets route I took also passed the original (and then the only) location of Kane's Donuts in East Saugus.
Ocean Park
I remember the proposal to rename Lynn to "Ocean Park".
Morning show radio DJs wasted no time at all:
Ocean Park, Ocean Park
Don't get caught there after dark!
Our version of that was
Ocean Park, Ocean Park
As dangerous by day
As it is in the dark!
There's a Robert Parker novel
where Spenser and Hawk clean up a very-thinly-disguised Lynn.
As I remember, it had a high body count.