Lawrence, Massachusetts Lawrence .
Lawrence, Massachusetts Official seal of Lawrence, Massachusetts Lawrence is positioned in the US Lawrence - Lawrence Lawrence is a town/city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, on the Merrimack River.
As of the 2010 census, the town/city had a populace of 76,377, which had risen to an estimated 78,197 as of 2014. Surrounding communities include Methuen to the north, Andover to the southwest, and North Andover to the southeast.
Lawrence and Salem are the county seats of Essex County. Lawrence is part of the Merrimack Valley.
Lawrence was the residence of poet Robert Frost for his early school years; his essays and poems were first presented in the Lawrence High School newspaper. 2 History of Lawrence immigrant communities See also: Timeline of Lawrence, Massachusetts 1912 Lawrence textile strike, Massachusetts National Guardsmen with fixed bayonets surround a parade of strikers.
Europeans first settled the Haverhill region in 1640, colonists from Newbury following the Merrimack River in from the coast. The region that would turn into Lawrence was then part of Methuen and Andover.
The first settlement came in 1655 with the establishment of a blockhouse in Shawsheen Fields, now South Lawrence.
The Water Power Association members: Abbott Lawrence, Edmund Bartlett, Thomas Hopkinson of Lowell, John Nesmith and Daniel Saunders, had purchased control of Peter's Falls on the Merrimack River and hence controlled Bodwell's Falls the site of the present Great Stone Dam.
The first excavations for the Great Stone Dam to harness the Merrimack River's water power were done on August 1, 1845.:17 The Essex Company would sell the water power to corporations such as the Arlington Mills, as well as organize assembly of mills and build to suit.
Incorporation as a town/city would come in 1853, and the name "Lawrence", merely chosen as a token of respect to Abbott Lawrence, who it cannot be verified ever saw the town/city named after him.
Canals were dug on both the north and the south banks to furnish power to the factories that would soon be assembled on its banks as both foundry owners and workers from athwart the town/city and the world flocked to the town/city in droves; many were Irish workers who had experience with similar building work.
Portrait of Ambassador Abbott Lawrence by G.P.A.
Main article: 1912 Lawrence textile strike Working conditions in the mills were unsafe and in 1860 the Pemberton Mill collapsed, killing 145 workers. As immigrants flooded into the United States in the mid to late 19th century, the populace of Lawrence abounded with skilled and unskilled workers from a several countries. Lawrence was the scene of the continuing Bread and Roses Strike, also known as the Lawrence Textile Strike, one of the more meaningful labor actions in American history. Lawrence was a great wool-processing center until that trade declined in the 1950s.
The diminish left Lawrence a struggling city.
The populace of Lawrence declined from over 80,000 inhabitants in 1950 (and a high of 94,270 in 1920) to approximately 64,000 inhabitants in 1980, the low point of Lawrence's population.
Merrimack River at Lawrence Like other northeastern metros/cities suffering from the effects of post-World War II industrialized decline, Lawrence has often made accomplishments at revitalization, some of them controversial.
For example, half of the enormous Wood Mill, powered by the Great Stone Dam and once the biggest mills in the world, was knocked down in the 1950s. The Lawrence Redevelopment Authority and town/city officials utilized eminent domain for a perceived enhance benefit, via a top down approach, to revitalize the town/city throughout the 1960s.
Known first as urban redevelopment, and then urban renewal, Lawrence's small-town government's actions towards vulnerable immigrant and poor communities, contained an undercurrent of gentrification which lies beneath the goals to revitalize Lawrence.
Under the guise of urban renewal, large tracts of downtown Lawrence were razed in the 1970s, and replaced with parking lots and a three-story parking garage connected to a new Intown Mall intended to compete with newly constructed suburban malls.
Lawrence also attempted to increase its employment base by attracting industries unwanted in other communities, such as waste treatment facilities and incinerators. From 1980 until 1998, private corporations directed two trash incinerators in Lawrence.
Recently the focus of Lawrence's urban renewal has shifted to preservation clean water sprawl.
Immigrants from the Dominican Republic and migrants from Puerto Rico began arriving in Lawrence in momentous numbers in the late 1960s, thriving by inexpensive housing and a history of tolerance toward immigrants. In 1984, tensions between remaining working class caucasians and increasing numbers of Hispanic youth flared into a riot, centered at the intersection of Haverhill Street and Oxford Street, where a number of buildings were finished by Molotov cocktails and over 300 citizens were arrested. Lawrence saw further setbacks amid the recession of the early 1990s as a wave of arson plagued the city.
A sharp reduction in violent crime starting in 2004 and massive private investment in former foundry buildings along the Merrimack River, including the remaining section of the historic Wood Mill to be converted into commercial, residentiary and education uses have lent encouragement to boosters of the city. One of the final remaining mills in the town/city is Malden Mills.
Lawrence's downtown has seen a resurgence of company activeness as Hispanic-owned businesses have opened along Essex Street, the historic shopping street of Lawrence that remained largely shuttered since the 1970s. In June 2007, the town/city allowed the sale of the Intown Mall, largely abandoned since the early 1990s recession, to Northern Essex Community College for the evolution of a medical sciences center, the assembly of which commenced in 2012 when the In - Town Mall was finally removed. A large multi-structure fire in January 2008 finished many wooden structures just south of downtown. A poor financial situation that has worsened with the recent global recession and has led to multiple municipal layoffs had Lawrence contemplating receivership. History of Lawrence immigrant communities Lawrence has been aptly nicknamed the "Immigrant City". Starting with the Irish in the 1840s, it has been home to various different immigrant communities, most of whom appeared amid the great wave of European immigration to America that ended in the 1920s.
Since the early 1970s, Lawrence has turn into home to a sizeable Hispanic population, primarily Dominicans and Puerto Ricans.
In 2010, 74% of the populace of Lawrence was Hispanic.
Lawrence became home to large groups of immigrants from Europe, beginning with the Irish in 1845, Germans after the civil upheaval in Germany in 1848, and French Canadians seeking to escape difficult northern farm life from the 1850s forward .
Immigration to the United States was severely curtailed in the 1920s with the Immigration Act of 1924, when foreign born immigration to Lawrence virtually ceased for over 40 years. In 1890, the foreign-born populace of 28,577 was divided as follows, with the momentous remainder of the populace being kids of foreign born residents: 7,058 Irish; 6,999 French Canadians; 5,131 English; 2,465 German; 1,683 English Canadian. In 1920, toward the end of the first wave of immigration, most ethnic groups had various civil clubs in the city.
Lawrence is dotted with churches, many now closed, torn down or converted into other uses.
Irish immigrants appeared in Lawrence at its birth, which coincided with the Great Potato Famine of the 1840s, the event that drove great numbers of Irish out of Ireland.
The first Irish immigrants settled in the region south of the Merrimack River near the intersection of Kingston Street and South Broadway.
The theological needs of the Irish were initially met by the Immaculate Conception church, originally erected near the corner of Chestnut and White Street in 1846, the first Roman Catholic church in Lawrence.
The first sizeable German improve appeared following the revolutions of 1848. However, a larger German improve was formed after 1871, when industrialized workers from Saxony were displaced by economic competition from new industrialized areas like the Ruhr. The German improve was characterized by various school clubs, shooting clubs, nationwide and county-wide clubs, as well as men's choirs and mutual aid societies, many of which were clustered around the Turn Verein, a primary civil club on Park Street. Laurence O'Toole Church, at the intersection of East Haverhill Street and Newbury Street, until they had collected sufficient funds to erect the Holy Rosary Church in 1909 close-by at the intersection of Union Street and Essex Street. Immigrants from Lentini (a comune in the Sicilian province of Syracuse) and from the Sicilian province of Catania maintained a particular devotion to three Catholic martyrs, Saint Alfio, Saint Filadelfo and Saint Cirino, and in 1923 began celebrating a procession on their feast day. Although most of the participants live in neighboring towns, the Feast of Three Saints festival continues in Lawrence today.
French Canadians were the second primary immigrant group to settle in Lawrence.
Anne's established a "missionary church", Sacred Heart on South Broadway, to serve the burgeoning Quebecois improve in South Lawrence.
Lawrence inhabitants incessantly referred to their Arabic-speaking Middle Eastern improve as "Syrian".
In fact, most so-called Syrians in Lawrence were from present-day Lebanon and were largely Maronite Christian. Lebanese immigrants organized St.
Jewish merchants became increasingly various in Lawrence and specialized in dry goods and retail shops.
The fanciest men's clothing store in Lawrence, Kap's, established in 1902 and closed in the early 1990s, was established by Elias Kapelson, born in Lithuania.
In the 1920s, the Jews of Lawrence began congregating further up Tower Hill, where they erected two Jewish churchs on Lowell Street above Milton Street, as well as a Jewish Community Center on close-by Haverhill Street.
The Polish improve of Lawrence was estimated to be only 600 800 persons in 1900.
Lawrence Street Congregational Church Not all immigrants to Lawrence were foreign-born or their children.
Yankee farmers, unable to compete against the cheaper farmlands of the Midwest that had been linked to the East coast by rail, settled in corners of Lawrence.
Congregationalists were the second Protestant denomination to begin worship in Lawrence after the Episcopalians, with the formation of the Lawrence Street Congregational Church in 1847,:66 and the first in South Lawrence, with the erection in 1852 of the first South Congregational Church on South Broadway, near the corner of Andover Street. Immigration of foreign born workers to Lawrence largely ceased in 1921 with the passage of strict quotas against immigrants from the countries that had supplied the cheap, unskilled workers.
Although many quotas were lifted after the Second World War, foreign immigration to Lawrence only picked up again in the early 1960s with Hispanic immigrants from Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and other Latin American countries.
Immigrants from Southeast Asia, especially Vietnam, have also settled in Lawrence.
Patrick's Church, a Catholic church in Lawrence and once an Irish bastion, has jubilated Spanish populace on Sundays since 1999.
Mary's of the Assumption Parish is the biggest Catholic church in Lawrence by Mass attendance and number of registered churchioners.
Lawrence is on both sides of the Merrimack River, approximately 26 miles (42 km) upstream from the Atlantic Ocean.
Lawrence is approximately 30 miles (48 km) north-northwest of Boston and 27 miles (43 km) southeast of Manchester, New Hampshire.
Aside from the Merrimack River, other water features include the Spicket River, which flows into the Merrimack from Methuen, and the Shawsheen River, which forms the southeastern border of the city.
Lawrence has two power canals that were formerly used to furnish hydropower to the mills - one on the north bank of the river, the other on the south.
The highest point in Lawrence is the top of Tower Hill in the northwest corner of the city, rising approximately 240 feet (73 m) above sea level.
Other prominent hills include Prospect Hill, in the northeast corner of the city, and Mount Vernon, along the southern edge of the city.
Den Rock Park, a wooded conservation precinct on the southern edge of Lawrence that spans the Lawrence-Andover town line, provides recreation for nature lovers and rock-climbers alike. There are also a several small parks throughout town.
Lawrence lies along Interstate 495, which passes through the easterly portion of the city.
There are three exits entirely inside the city, though two more furnish access from just outside the town/city limits.
The town is also served by Route 28 passing from south to north through the city, and Route 110, which passes from east to west through the northern half of the city.
Lawrence is the site of four road crossings and a barns crossing over the Merrimack, including the O'Leary Bridge (Route 28), a barns bridge, the Casey Bridge (bringing Parker Street and access to Route 114 and the Lawrence MBTA station to the north shore), the Duck Bridge (which brings Union Street athwart the river), and the double-decked O'Reilly Bridge, bringing I-495 athwart the river.
Lawrence is the core of the Merrimack Valley Regional Transit Authority's bus service.
It is also home to the Senator Patricia Mc - Govern Transportation Center, home to county-wide bus service and the Lawrence stop along the Haverhill/Reading Line of the MBTA Commuter Rail system, providing service from Haverhill to Boston's North Station.
Lawrence Municipal Airport provides small plane service, though it is actually in neighboring North Andover.
Lawrence is approximately equidistant from Manchester-Boston Regional Airport and Logan International Airport.
Future plans to revitalize the Manchester and Lawrence branch to the north, dominant to Manchester, New Hampshire, will allow the MBTA to operate rail service up to Manchester from Lawrence, in conjunction with Pan Am Freights.
Lawrence has a humid continental climate (Koppen climate classification Dfa), which is typical for the southern Merrimack valley region in easterly Massachusetts.
Climate data for Lawrence, Massachusetts The ethnic makeup of the town/city is 42.8% White (20.5% non-Hispanic), 7.6% Black or African American, 2.5% Asian (0.8% Vietnamese, 0.8% Cambodian), 1.3% American Indian or Alaskan Native, 0.1% (57 total) Hawaiian Native or Pacific Islander, 39.3% some other race, 6.5% two or more competitions, and 73.8% of the populace is Hispanic or Latino (of any race) (39.6% Dominican, 22.2% Puerto Rican, 3.0% Guatemalan, 0.8% Ecuadorian, 0.7% Mexican, 0.6% Salvadoran, 0.5% Cuban) (U.S.
The Mayor of Lawrence, Daniel Rivera, said the town/city was "approximately 75% Spanish" following an incident where non English speaking callers were allegedly hung up on by a 911 operator. Plan B - "Strong mayor" - Mayor and town/city council, the councilors being propel partly at large and partly from districts or wards of the city.
Party primaries prohibited. Lawrence has an established City Charter and with a Mayor-council government.
There are nine town/city councilors and six school committee members; most are propel by district; three town/city council members are propel at large.
There are six districts in Lawrence and all elections are non-partisan.
The town/city of Lawrence also elects three members to the Greater Lawrence Technical School Committee these members are propel at-large.
Lawrence City Council Lawrence School Committee Greater Lawrence Lawrence has its own police and fire departments, and Lawrence General Hospital provides ambulance services to the city. The town/city also has its own enhance works and trash pickup departments.
Lawrence is one of Essex County's two county seats, along with Salem.
It is also home to the Lawrence Correctional Alternative Center, a county-wide alternative jail for low-risk offenders.
The town/city is also veiled by the Andover barracks of Troop A of the Massachusetts State Police, which serves much of the Merrimack Valley and a several towns just south of Andover.
Lawrence General Hospital is the city's chief hospital, providing service to much of the region south of the city.
The town/city also is served by the Greater Lawrence Family Health Center. Guardian Ambulance was established in 1990 and incorporated in 1991 by small-town EMTs to serve the town/city during a downturn in the economy at that time.
Lawrence Public Schools Lawrence, MA 01840 Website Lawrence Public Schools The town/city has a enhance school fitness managed by Lawrence Public Schools.
In November 2011, the Lawrence Public Schools was placed into state receivership by the Massachusetts Board of Elementary & Secondary Education. Lawrence High School Greater Lawrence Technical School - a county-wide technical high school serving the four communities of Andover, Lawrence, Methuen and North Andover Lawrence Family Development Charter School Lawrence Catholic Academy Lawrence enhance library, 1899 The Lawrence enhance library was established in 1872. In fiscal year 2008, the town/city of Lawrence spent 0.55% ($1,155,597) of its budget on its enhance library some $16 per person. Lawrence's chief journal is The Eagle-Tribune, one of the primary newspapers for the Merrimack Valley that was established in Lawrence in 1890 but later moved its facilities to the town of North Andover on Route 114.
Lawrence is home to Rumbo (a bilingual English/Spanish paper) and Siglo 21 (a Spanish paper).
Another journal closely covering Lawrence news is The Valley Patriot, a monthly paper presented in North Andover.
WMFP is the only tv station operating out of the city, and the town/city is considered part of the Boston tv market.
Lawrence is served by Area codes 978 and 351.
New Balance has a shoe manufacturing plant in Lawrence, one of five plants operating in the US. Charm Sciences, which manufactures test kits and systems for antibiotic, veterinary drugs, mycotoxins, pesticides, alkaline phosphatase, pathogens, end-product microbial assessment, allergen control, and ATP hygiene, has a laboratory in Lawrence.
Lawrence Community Works Lawrence Experiment Station Lawrence Heritage State Park Lawrence History Center Lawrence Public Library Leonard Bernstein, composer, conductor of New York Philharmonic, winner of a Tony Award and 18 Grammy Awards, born in Lawrence Robert Frost, iconic poet, winner of four Pulitzer Prizes and a Congressional Gold Medal, a graduate of Lawrence High School Robert Goulet, Grammy-winning singer and Tony-winning actor, born in Lawrence Abbott Lawrence, founder of Lawrence, U.S.
Anna Lo - Pizzo, striker killed amid the Lawrence textile strike congressman from 1875 to 1877 and Mayor of Lawrence from (1873 1875) 1912 Lawrence textile strike "Geographic Identifiers: 2010 Demographic Profile Data (G001): Lawrence city, Massachusetts".
Robert Frost and the Lawrence, Massachusetts, High School Bulletin; the beginning of a literary career,.
Jonathan Franklin Chesley Hayes, History of the City of Lawrence (1868) The History of Lawrence Massachusetts, Volume 2, page 7.
"Pro - Quest Document View - Urban redevelopment of Lawrence, MA: A retrospective case study of the Plains Neighborhood".
"Crackdown by police cools Lawrence riots".
"Two Nights of Rioting Bring a Curfew to Lawrence Mass.".
"150 left homeless from Lawrence fire".
"Lawrence fiscal crisis prompts talk of bankruptcy, receivership".
Immigrant City: Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1845 1921.
History of Lawrence, Massachusetts (Lawrence, 1880).
Lawrence, Massachusetts.
"Lucie's Legacy: History of Lawrence, MA - Immigrant Communities".
Quarter-centennial history of Lawrence, Massachusetts: With portraits and biographical sketches of ex-mayors, the board of may...
Quarter-centennial history of Lawrence, Massachusetts: With portraits and biographical sketches of ex-mayors, the board of mayor and aldermen for the present year, other dominant officials, and a representation of company and experienced men.
Lawrence, Mass.: H.
Reed, Lawrence Eagle Steam Job Print.
Mc - Caffery, Robert Paul, "Islands of Deutschtum: German-Americans in Manchester, New Hampshire and Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1870 1942".
"Lawrence - Lawrence - Ancestry & family history - e - Podunk".
"Lawrence 911 Dispatcher Accused Of Hanging Up On Spanish Speaking Callers".
"Chapter 43- City Charters".
City of Lawrence, Massachusetts.
"City of Lawrence Charter" (PDF).
City of Lawrence, Massachusetts.
"Mayor drops Patriot Ambulance, hires Lawrence General".
Lawrence Public Schools.
"Lawrence Family Development Charter School".
"Lawrence Catholic Academy".
"Lawrence History Center".
Urban redevelopment of Lawrence, MA a retrospective case study of the Plains Neighborhood by Pernice, Nicolas M., M.S.
Dorgan, History of Lawrence, Massachusetts: With War Records.
Lawrence, MA: Maurice B.
"Ethnic tensions in Lawrence" (Archive).
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City of Lawrence official website Cities - Springfield, Worcester, Lowell, Lawrence, Haverhill, Newburyport, Salem, Lynn, Taunton, Fall River.
"Lawrence (Massachusetts)".
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Municipalities and communities of Essex County, Massachusetts, United States
Categories:
Populated places established in 1655 - Populated places on the Merrimack River - 1984 riots - Lawrence, Massachusetts - Cities in Massachusetts - County seats in Massachusetts - Industrial Revolution - Early American industrialized centers - History of the textile trade - Labor disputes in the United States - 1655 establishments in Massachusetts - Cities in Essex County, Massachusetts - Hispanic and Latino American culture in Massachusetts
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