Building on a Swamp is a Bad Idea

Classical's 6-year-old slab is sinking into the former solid waste landfill underneath the school, creating crumbling walls, two-inch gaps where one part of the building has pulled away from another, buckled ceiling tiles, cracked and lifted floor tiles, shattered trophy case glass, misaligned doors, and jagged floor-to-ceiling cracks in the walls.

If by solid landful, they mean liquidy liquid liquid, they could just be right. But what's a little 20-30 million dollar repair bill? Why pay for one school when the City of Lynn can pay for two? It's the kind of economy the right wing - and inept political leadership - just loves.

The ironic thing is that just down the street from the "solid waste landful" Lynn chose to build a high school on was acres of city-owned property - property the city recently sold for about a million dollars. Good planning.

The sad thing is people can't just say hindsight is 20-20. All sorts of people knew building Classical where they built it was a terrible idea. The fact that part of the school is now sinking, just six years later, should shock no one. Except the politicians who chose that site - because they were clearly idiots.

Lynn's trying to sue the architects. Surely, there's plenty of blame to go around. But, I'm of the opinion that this is mostly Lynn's fault. Lynn should have known better; it's a little late to expect someone else to pick up the entire 20+ million dollar tab this new project is going to cost. But, then again, this is Lynn leadership we're talking about. It's always someone else's fault.

Lynn's in a period of recovery now. There's all sorts of development planned on the waterfront and even the downtown area has made some modest improvements. People are actually moving into lofts and nice apartments just on the outskirts of Downtown - and there are some new shops, gallaries, college classes and restaurants moving in the area. However, to have to essentially pay for a second entire high school isn't going to speed up Lynn's resurgence. Will the repairs really fix the problems, or will there just be more crack in Classical's foundation in another six years?

(Just to note... the above picture isn't Lynn Classical lol.)