April 2018 - Neighborhood View

Could “Smart Growth” guide Malden’s development?

April 16, 2018 NeighborhoodView 2

By the staff of Neighborhood View The second in a series exploring the future of development in Malden. See part one here. Today we have many “trigger” words to avoid in certain places, and apparently the word “growth” is one of them at Malden City Council meetings. That’s according to councilor Steve Winslow, with a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor. The use of the word “growth” has been contentious in Malden ever since a November 2015 vote to approve a one-year moratorium on multi-family development of more than 5 units outside the Central Business District. In January 2017, the city council extended the moratorium through the end of June to allow for additional study and expanded it to include the Central Business District. Yet, a growing cadre of Malden residents is pushing for the city to consider an approach called “Smart Growth” and Winslow counts himself among its proponents. Indeed, he said, “What we have on the Council right now is a few advocates for smart growth vs. no growth at all.” But what is Smart Growth? […]

Art treasures at the library: Lincoln at Gettysburg

April 12, 2018 jlynnmcclain 1

By Jennifer McClain This is the first in a series on “Treasures at the Library.” Please note that direct photographs of artwork at the library is not permitted. You may think of Malden Public Library as a place for books, but the library has a surprisingly impressive art collection. One of its startlingly monumental paintings is “Lincoln at Gettysburg,” by Albion Harris Bicknell (1837-1915). To examine this painting, please click on this link. That the Gettysburg address on Nov. 19, 1861, was astounding speech of eloquence by Abraham Lincoln on that day is well known. Less well-known are the other attendees on that event. According an art collection website from Lafayette College, “Lincoln at Gettysburg” was painted in the late 1870s or early 1880s. Bicknell depicts 20 important Union leaders, some who did not actually attend the ceremony. In a letter to the Malden Public Library, the National Park Service said the Bicknell work was the only painting made of the dedication of the national cemetery at Gettysburg. All of the twenty men represented in the […]

Is “Smart Growth” the future for Malden?

April 5, 2018 NeighborhoodView 7

Should Malden stop regarding growth as a problem and instead see it as an opportunity? By the staff of Neighborhood View, the first in a series exploring the future of development in Malden . In its 350-year-plus history, Malden has transformed itself over and over again. Today, the city is in the midst of another transformation that may chart its history for decades to come. Let’s start with a little history. In the 18th and 19th century, Malden was mostly farmland and dairy farms, amid hills and woodlands north of the Mystic River. By the early 1900s, it was a bustling urban area with five movie theaters, a popular Jordan Marsh department store, and a growing population of both immigrants and those who had settled here centuries before. Much of the city’s housing stock dates to the 1920s and the city steadily grew and prospered until the 1950s. The population started to decline in the 1960s and by the 1970s, Malden was mired in an economic malaise that affected much of New England. In the 1980s, the […]