May
29, 2007
By: Robin Kaminski
The Daily Item
With miles of scenic coastline, state of the art facilities
and new residential units popping up all over the city,
the time has come to advertise Lynn, according to a top
City Hall source.
“With all that we have to offer in the city, we
feel it is timely to begin marketing ourselves in targeted
areas in and around Boston, such as Somerville, Charlestown
and Jamaica Plain,” said James Marsh, chief aide
to Mayor Edward J. Clancy Jr.
Although the city has been marketed in the past, Marsh
said it wasn’t quite as large scale and that the
new campaign would rival that of one recently completed
in Lowell that helped to breathe new life into the urban
landscape.
“The city of Lowell reinvented themselves, but they
still can’t say that they have seven miles of coastline
or that it only takes five minutes to access Boston on
the commuter rail,” he said. “We have a hip
and energetic downtown and it’s time to show that
to people.”
While the city has attempted to market itself in the past
through brochures and pamphlets, Marsh said the new “guerrilla
marketing” campaign would include far more aggressive
tactics to lure faces to the neighborhood.
“It’s still in the early stages and we just
had our first meeting on the issue, but this is just the
beginning,” he said. “With a downtown that
is reinventing itself with the possibilities on the waterfront,
the historical significance of the area coupled with the
amenities that we have to offer, we are excited to tell
our story and continue our goal of putting Lynn back on
the map as one of Massachusetts’ premier cities.”
Boasting one of the top 18-hole municipal golf courses
in the state, professional baseball and one of the largest
municipal parks in the nation (surpassing New York City’s
Central Park) that features 40 miles of recreational space,
Marsh says the city has a lot to offer.
“With the newly rehabilitated 2,000 plus seat auditorium
that hosts Keith Lockhart, the Boston Pops and Peter, Paul & Mary
and a public observatory with telescopes powerful enough
to see the rings of Saturn, it’s time to get people
to move here, shop here and come here,” he said.
Despite the seemingly endless amenities the city has to
offer, Marsh also addressed one the major deterrents discouraging
visitors: crime.
“Like any other urban center, there are crime-related
issues to deal with,” he said. “However, the
anti-social behavior of a few will not deter us from aggressively
putting Lynn back on the map as a place to be in the 2000s.”
Citing a major aesthetic improvement to the downtown section
of the city since the 1970s, Marsh said he is also investigating
the option of making the city “wireless” to
entice young professionals to call Lynn their new home.
“Some sections of the city have an image problem
and we are actively addressing it,” he said. “Lynn
is a suburb, but at the same time we aren’t really
seen as a suburb… A lot of older urban areas have
the same problem.”
Marsh stressed that the project would be funded through
federal grants and or the Economic Development and Industrial
Corporation (EDIC) and not be put on the burden of local
taxpayers. |
