LYNN — Presented by The Lynn Historical Commission at Lynn City Hall, are four significant awards: the Residential Award, accepted by brothers Hashmat and Hourmat Raue; the commercial award — this attendee could not be there to accept it in person; a Public/Open Space award — this could not be accepted in person by the attendee; and the final award is the Devotion Award accepted by diorama artist Todd Gieg.
Residential Award
After several years of careful attention to detail, the Central Square building located on 38 Exchange St. — more properly known as the Daily Item building, is now occupied by commercial and (mostly) residential tenants.
Commercial Award
The Stern building is not a large building, although it does have the location that has served passers-by and destination niche shoppers for generations. One is able to see how the developer of this building creatively used every square foot to maximize this usable, sellable space. Leaving it be a survivor to preservation.
Public/Open Space Award
The Northern Strand Rail Trail recently, after several years of public discussion and planning, and a few false-starts — the city of Lynn, is now linked with half a dozen others by way of repurpose. There is now a safe, landscaped, attractive, multi-use, recreational, and transportation trail that follows the traditional and historical route of the former railroad.
Devotion Award
“Many railroads have been modeled over and over again, but to my knowledge, the Narrow Gauge has never been so honored. In 1875 it took three months to build the railroad. It will probably take me 20 years to build its model,” said award recipient Todd Gieg.
The Lynn Museum provided a showcase for the first three modules of this project which will eventually go on to extend 56 feet in length. It will stretch from East Boston to Lynn, Gieg’s greatest challenge in all of this is finding the space to accommodate the creation of the model.
Magella Cantara can be reached at [email protected].
