Fitchburg officials look to Lynn for cultural inspiration

LYNN – The student may not have become the master but Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy said it is awfully sweet to have another community turn to Lynn for guidance for once.”I gave greetings to a group from Fitchburg,” she said. “They were to here to ask us how we’re succeeding in getting our downtown to come back to life.”In March Lynn became one of the first communities in the state to be awarded a Massachusetts Cultural Council Cultural Designation, making a portion of the downtown area an official cultural destination. Economic Development and Industrial Corporation Executive Director James Cowdell said Fitchburg officials are seeking the same designation and asked for help with the application process.”It’s really nice to have other communities come to us to learn,” he said.Cowdell said he walked them through the application process from Lynn’s perspective then he walked them around Lynn. He took them on the cultural trail, which includes Raw Arts, Lynn Arts, The Lynn Museum, Zimman’s, Capitol Diner and a dozen other sites.”We took them to the GAR (Grand Army of the Republic) Museum and they were blown away,” he said. “They were impressed with the whole tour.”Community Development Director James Marsh said he also spent some time fielding questions about City Hall’s Veterans Memorial Auditorium.”We talked about the renovations and how the program evolved,” he said. “They came in wide-eyed asking, ‘How did you do this?'”Marsh said they asked where they could find funding and state grants, and he joked one woman asked where she could get tickets to the Sept. 20 concert of Foreigner.Marsh said the visit wasn’t unusual from the perspective of asking for help. He said when his office was looking to develop the waterfront master plan they looked at waterfront projects from Gloucester to Marblehead to Quincy and even Baltimore, Md.”When we redid Manning field we visited a dozen different football fields,” he said. “Now people are coming to us to see how we did it. It’s good.”Chris Stevens can be reached at [email protected].