Rest in Peace Post 507

Warning: I am a graveyard shifter and primarily a stream of conscious writer, so sometimes my writing makes no sense.

Post 507, my memories are brighter than the reality.

I was drawn back to this hidden lot amongst the highlands from a recent reading in the Lynn Item that the land was for sale and will soon become a bustling and hustling charter school. I know the school will do good for the students and be a bright spot in the city for education, but do we need it in the Highlands?

My thoughts on this are as follows: why would you build a school in such a secluded, quiet, hard to get to place? I want to bet that most Lynners rarely travel to the highlands unless they feel like looking down on the city from High Rock reservation. Why is it so ill-traveled? Mostly because all of the ways up to the inner highlands are steep roads that put a strain on cars, especially older ones (which is why I shudder at the thought of buses trying to go down some of the roads when there's snow and ice on the roads, the highlands rarely gets plowed).
As well, unless you live in the Highlands you really have no reason to go there, it's not some secret short cut to the other side of town nor is it a center of business. The highlands is primarily a lower middle class neighborhood, one I am proud to remember as my birthplace and the land of my upbringing.

The streets are narrow, many of them steep (many times I have been frightened of my brakes failing on some of the streets). Because of the nature of the terrain the streets are also some of the safest in Lynn (surprising because to my knowledge there is not a single traffic light in the Highlands proper) This means kids can play outside with less of a fear of getting hit. As the area is so dense with housing and so diverse in turns, dips, inclines, most of the cars travel slowly which makes it a great neighborhood to let your kids out to play in. Sure some of you may argue the Highlands are a hotbed of gang activity and shootings but I have rarely heard of murders, car accidents, jumpings, or break ins related to the area.

So far anyone not familiar with the highlands may start to form a picture of the area: slow traffic due to necessity, seclusion, and driving environment. A place with a lot of young children (lower income families tend to have more children than higher income earners), a strong sense of community (people always ask west or east, I always reply Highlands, we take pride in our porphyry hills).

Now what does adding a busy, shiny, new school with mostly non-highland residents mean?

-Well, during construction there will be much more noise (say good bye to a quiet sit on the porch/balcony). As well, construction through all hours of the night, much cheaper for the school to do it that way. Large construction vehicles traveling the narrow, steep, crowded roads to get to the site. I bet there will be many missing side view mirrors and scratched sides on cars

-There will be much more pollution in the air: diesel fumes, dirt, concrete dust, and all the other nice things that go with large scale construction.

-Increased and more dangerous traffic: Buses lurching around sharp corners, down steep hills .Think of what it will be like when the snowbanks pop up and the streets virtually become single lanes...not to mention how the buses will deal with going down an icy hill. Not to mention the late mom or dad speeding up the hills to get junior to or from school.

-This is opinion: increased property taxes due to the nice, new, well-performing school. This will basically gentrify the almost exclusively minority and low-income neighborhood in the Highlands and force many of the residents out and into more dangerous, less safe neighborhoods.

-A loss of a large area of social importance: many gatherings have taken place at the post whether from the time when the baseball field was used or at the club itself in the form of vets getting together for a drink or families renting the place for wedding parties and other gatherings.

-Loss of a possible site for urban agriculture, gardens, outdoor gathering place, community center.

-A detractor to the already existing public elementary school, Ford School. I am sure the higher grade point kids will be taken out by their parents and enrolled into the new private school which will bring down the academic standing of Ford. And as it is a public school it will be stuck in a cycle of brain-drain and funding loss.

-A loss of habitat for wildlife. I'm a very amateur naturalist but if I remember correctly there are many salamanders, snakes (many snakes!), newts, foxes, nesting places for endangered birds, resting/feeding grounds for migratory (and endangered!) butterflies and moths, etc. Anyone not familiar with New England ecology should know that reptiles and amphibians in new England are highly endangered and any place they are found should be protected. If anything I would suggest turning this place over to be added to the High Rock reservation, maybe rehabilitate the field. I also suggest sending a biologist up there to check if the salamanders still live there (if they do there is a possibility of making the site protected which will force the school to be smaller and probably not prefer the land as much.)

Now of course I know that this is private land and I support property rights of the owners, but I think they are forgetting how much of an impact their land has on the neighborhood of the Highlands and how much of a detriment to the social fabric of the community they will have by selling it and barring access to the residents.

I know that the post has already changed much from when I lived at 66 high rock street and jumped my stone wall to hang out in "the woods" but the memories of that place still burn in my brain. That place had such an impact on my life. I met my best friend there who I would continue to be best friends with from age 4 up until he passed away last year. I spent many days there enamored with the wildlife (it influenced me to eventually grow to have a huge love of conservation and wildlife). It was an outdoor place that kids could go to without fear, no drug deals, gangs, or perverts/kidnappers. At the same time it fostered Independence. I could go there without parental supervision (as I was within a minute walk from my house, and shouting distance). My friends and I felt like we were adults out exploring the open world by hunting snakes in the tall grass, trekking through the windbreak, and climbing the rocky "mountain" to get to the "castle" (High Rock tower).

Like I said at the beginning, I returned to the Post recently,My friend (who shares many of the same childhood memories as I do of the place) and I climbed down from High Rock Park. It's already much changed. A house sits on the rocks we used to watch the clouds from, piles of dirt and concrete coupled with back-hoes litter the fields were we trampled through puddles, captured small insects and animals, made believe we were out on the African Savannah, the path from my old house to the Post is now a fenced parking lot. The windbreak or as we called it the "devil's woods" ,because we always found it creepy to be in there for extended periods, plus the thorn trees looked evil, is also mostly gone.

That aside, there is still a chance for it to easily and cheaply be turned back into a community place, not a private school with a large soccer field off limits to the public.

But knowing municipal government and outside interest this place will be lost and a tear in the fabric of the community will appear, slowly growing larger over the years as the neighborhood transforms into a sterile, characterless, bedroom community for Boston transplants seeking to get away from Boston but bringing it with them as well. (Yeah I know, that's a huge and fanciful assumption of what a private school will bring to the Highlands and mostly opinion.)

I say, let the community (with funds from the city because I know there are grants for these sort of things) purchase the land with pooled funds and turn it into something of use to the neighborhood, not an anchor for future gentrification and the veritable death knell of the community.

But don't take my word for it. Contact the many groups in the Highlands about it.

http://hclynn.org/

There's the link to the Highlands coalition, a resident formed and staffed group dedicated to their neighborhood.

Yours always, fair lady Lynn
Kyle Devaney, son of the Highlands.