To the editor:
People keep saying Gloucester needs more housing. More apartments, more condos, more this, more that. But I have to ask — if we really needed more housing, why did we tear so much of it down during urban renewal?
Checkmate, planners.
Back in the 60s and 70s, this town had plenty of places to live. Sure, most of them were on a tilt. Sure, the staircases were made of softwood and bad decisions. But they were homes. And then what did we do? We looked around and said, “You know what this working class fishing town needs? Fewer buildings and more open pavement.”
And we did it! Block by glorious block. Bulldozers came in like a civic exorcism, cleansing the downtown of any hint of shelter. Today, people call that “lost housing stock.” Back then, we called it “making room for a parking lot.”
If the need for housing was really so urgent, surely someone would have stopped the backhoes. But nobody did. You know why? Because we were visionaries. We knew future generations would want to stand on a place like I4-C2, gaze across the barren lot and say, “Yes. This is where I’d like to imagine something useful, but never actually build it.”
Now you’ve got these so-called experts coming in with “plans” and “infrastructure” and “viable multi-family development proposals.” They talk about “smart growth.” You know what was smart? Turning several structurally questionable homes into one premium municipal lot so that people don’t have to suffer the indignity of walking more than 50 feet to work in the morning.
If we really needed more housing, we wouldn’t have vaporized entire neighborhoods to make way for wishful thinking. We would have ignored the siren song of more parking, just like we ignored the heroin epidemic. But no — we made a choice.
And now you want to undo that beautiful, empty lot with… what? People? Not on my watch.
Lawrence Fitch
East Main Street
Gloucester
The Dogtown Reader 