“I love it here, and it’s nice to see other people join in that enthusiasm.”
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“It feels really great that Al spread a net to include the whole community,” says Carly McLain, executive council for the Lynn Housing Authority and member of the Beyond Walls committee. In the 1800s Lynn was considered the shoe capital of the world with over 200 shoe factories, and General Electric, which still employs Lynn residents, has been in the city since before World War I - the first American made jet-engine was made here, and so were some of the fuel cells for the Gemini spacecraft. In Lynn, creative placemaking - the intentional use of the arts in placebased community development - is being used to address economic, safety and perception issues. “It engenders a sense of ownership - people feel a relationship to the project] already.” San San Wong, Director of Arts and Creativity at the Barr Foundation. “Beyond Walls did well by having community conversations and business conversations,” says E. But Beyond Walls’ key move was to involve the community from the start and make Lynn’s citizens central to the development, planning and execution. Even when attempted, it is not always successful. In addition to the murals, there are in-progress initiatives to light the MBTA underpass with colored LEDs, place a collection of vintage neon signs along the sidewalks and put a GE jet engine sculpture installation in a to be determined location. The content ranges from people and words to traditional styles of graffiti, and they flow from one to the next, as if in procession through the streets.īeyond Walls is tackling placemaking on a massive scale. Angurria, an artist from the Dominican Republic, is spray-painting huge swaths of color that will eventually form a woman’s face.Īngurria’s mural is one of 15 clustured downtown, designed to be seen from both street level and the city’s raised MBTA rail. Flanked by two friends, she gazes wide-eyed at a white washed wall, where Angurria is perched atop a car-sized hydraulic lift.
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“This makes me so proud to be from here!” exclaims Diana Vasquez, a mentoring coordinator at La Vida Scholars Americorps in Lynn.