Lynn Shore Drive is an historic oceanfront

parkway A parkway is a landscaped thoroughfare.''"parkway."''Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002. http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com (14 Apr. 2007). The term is particularly used for a roadway in a park or ...

Lynn, Massachusetts Lynn is the eighth-largest municipality in Massachusetts and the largest city in Essex County. Situated on the Atlantic Ocean, north of the Boston city line at Suffolk Downs, Lynn is part of Greater Boston's urban inner core. Settled by E ...

. Composed of a two-lane road, parkland, a seaside pedestrian

esplanade An esplanade or promenade is a long, open, level area, usually next to a river or large body of water, where people may walk. The historical definition of ''esplanade'' was a large, open, level area outside fortress or city walls to provide cle ...

, and a

seawall A seawall (or sea wall) is a form of coastal defense constructed where the sea, and associated coastal processes, impact directly upon the landforms of the coast. The purpose of a seawall is to protect areas of human habitation, conservation ...

, Lynn Shore Drive runs for approximately along Lynn's Atlantic Ocean coastline, following the upland boundary of the adjoining

Lynn Shore Reservation Lynn Shore Reservation is a protected coastal reservation in the city of Lynn, Massachusetts. It includes of beaches and recreational areas.

, and connecting

Nahant Nahant is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 3,334 at the 2020 census, which makes it the smallest municipality by population in Essex County. With just of land area, it is the smallest municipality by are ...

with

Swampscott Swampscott () is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, located up the coast from Boston in an area known as the North Shore. The population was 15,111 as of the 2020 United States Census. A former summer resort on Massachusetts Ba ...

. Known for its scenic views of the open

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...

, Nahant Bay,

Egg Rock Egg Rock is an outcrop of Silurian Straw Hollow Diorite at the confluence of the Assabet and Sudbury rivers, where they form the Concord River in Concord, Massachusetts. The outcrop is located on a roughly oval intermittent island of about 100 ...

, and

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

Skyline, Lynn Shore Drive is part of the

Essex Coastal Scenic Byway The Essex Coastal Scenic Byway is a 90-mile-long scenic road network running through 14 coastal communities in Essex County, Massachusetts. The byway, which runs along the North Shore of Massachusetts, from the City of Lynn to the Town of Salis ...

and forms the southeasterly edge of the National Register Diamond Historic District. The Lynn Shore Drive seawall is a contributing resource to the National Register District--as are many of the historic homes lining the drive’s inland edge. An early example of a parkway, and distinctive by virtue of its oceanfront setting, Lynn Shore Drive opened to the public in 1907. Prior to the drive’s creation, Lynn’s oceanfront was held largely in private estates and was not accessible to the public. The effort to create Lynn Shore Drive was pioneered in part by George N. Nichols, a Lynn resident who, in 1874—at age 19—petitioned Lynn’s City Council to appropriate for public use the lands along the Diamond District’s oceanfront. Between 1895 and 1903, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ Metropolitan District Commission acquired land parcels encompassing a substantial stretch of Lynn’s coastline, laying the groundwork for the construction of Lynn Shore Drive--and the contemporaneous creation of the adjoining Lynn Shore and Nahant Beach Reservations. Lynn Shore Drive is today managed by the Metropolitan District Commission's successor agency, the Massachusetts

Department of Conservation and Recreation The Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) is a state agency of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, situated in the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. It is best known for its parks and parkways. The DCR's mission is ...

References

{{Reflist Parkways in Massachusetts