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The Turtleboy staff has already explored Northwestern Worcester County, made inroads into Hampden County, blazed through the Blackstone Valley, and found the biggest dumps in Rhode Island. So it was time to go east and explore the magical lands of the north shore today. The TBS crew had an epic bone ride through Lynnfield, Peabody, Saugus, Lynn, Nahant, Swampscott, Marblehead, Salem, Beverly, and Danvers on Wednesday. As usual we’ve ranked them from nicest to crappiest. Keep in mind for all you whiners out there, we obviously can’t get to every single corner of every town. We drive through each place for like 20 minutes. We see what the average person sees when driving through your city. So if you live in some mansion in a remote area of a dump town, no one cares. It’s like you don’t really live there. With that said, here’s how we rank em this time…

 

 

 

1. Lynnfield

Lynnfield is by far the nicest town we’ve seen on any of our bone rides. No vagrants allowed. Every neighborhood looks like you could eat your dinner off the streets. It’s literally the most pleasant looking place we’ve ever seen:

Except for this house:

Whoever lives there is probably the most hated person in Lynnfield. Doing their best to drive down property value, one broken down car in the yard at a time.

But seriously, these are main roads we’re talking about in a lot of these pictures:

Those houses look like a hide and go seek wet dream. Lynnfield is also right off I-95, not far from the beach, and close to a bunch of malls, so it doesn’t matter that there’s absolutely nothing downtown. It’s the perfect place to live. Way too nice for the Turtleboy family, or anyone who was raised in the Woo.

 

 

2. Danvers

Another lovely town. Never been to Danvers before, probably because no one from Danvers would ever wanna hang out with Turtleboy. When we used to go to parties in high school it was always at some fleabag apartment on Southgate Street. We just needed a place where we could pound Natty Lights and the neighbors were undocumented so they couldn’t call the cops on us. But everyone once in a while we’d find out about a St. John’s or a Wachusett party, and we’d show up. All sausage of course, because no girls ever wanted to hang out with us. Naturally we always ruined the party because the houses we’d show up at were like culture class. It was too nice for us and we didn’t know how to behave. Probably why we never went to any parties in Danvers:

Seriously though, have you ever seen a street more perfect for pushing a wheel with a stick?

This was the scummiest looking place we could find in Danvers, and even it looks nicer than 99% of Worcester:

Just watch out for these guys.

You know you’re living in a swanky place when there’s a Yoga studio downtown.

Danvers is also right on 95 and it’s got a mall and it’s pretty close to the beach. Good times in Danvers.

 

 

3. Nahant

Nahant is on a peninsula, so to get there you have to travel down a mile long strip that gives you a pretty cool view of Boston and Revere:

It’s obviously a beach town:

The lovely scenery is conducive for healthy, attractive people who like to jog and not look like disgusting slobs.

Half the homes in town have the Atlantic Ocean for a backyard.

The rest are nice lovely town roads.

Downtown is your typical beach town:

Basically, unless you’re filthy rich you’ll never, ever live in Nahant.

The reason we couldn’t put Nahant any higher than this was the fact that there’s only one way in and out of Nahant – through Lynn. And I would bet my bottom dollar that this place gets invaded by some of Lynn’s finest once the sun comes out to play in June. They have to have some sort of ordinance in place right? No Lynn allowed. Keep Nahant great again.

 

 

4. Swampscott

Barstool Sports (now minority) owner Dave Portony is from Swampscott. A lot of the butthurts give us the “Turtleboy is a Barstool ripoff” schtick in the comments section. But in reality, it’s totally different. Barstool is a Swampscott blog. Turtleboy is a Worcester blog. Even though we blog about a million different places, it’s the fact that it’s blogged about through a Worcester perspective that makes it authentic. Because when you’re from Worcester, you understand how hilarious grime can be. When you’re from Swampscott, and you grow up in this:

Your takes can only be so hot. It’s why they have to resort to making you guess that ass and know a camel toe. Because you can only write so many blogs about Justin Bieber and LeBron James before you run out of things to talk about. When you live in Worcester, there’s always something to talk about. Swampscott might be a million times nicer than Worcester, and have a long coastline along the beach. But Swampscott doesn’t have Tracy Novick. She might be the worst person on earth, but at least she gives us something to talk about.

But seriously, Swampscott is another great town. Even though it’s technically a beach town, it’s not one of those cape towns with no chain stores. They’ve got everything.

And I got so aroused when I came across a Marshalls

directly across the street from a Five Guys

Uhhhhhhhh…Swampscott. This is the roughest part of town:

And as you can see, they serve craft beer. Serving craft beer is like owning a nighclub and not allowing hats or jerseys. It’s a great way to ensure that your town doesn’t become ghetto-fied.

 

 

5. Marblehead

Marblehead is basically the same thing as Swampscott except more crowded and it has more of a beach town feel.

There’s some insane property

and pleasant looking neighborhoods

The downside, like Swampscott, is that it’s kind of a pain in the ass to get to. Other than that, Marblehead is way too nice for the Turtleboy family.

 

 

6. Beverly

If your town touches the ocean, it’s kind of hard for it to look like shit. As a matter of fact, there are a lot of parts of Beverly that are Turtelboy’s dream neighborhoods:

Turtleboy Jr. is a moron. He is a kidnapping waiting to happen. That’s why we need to live in a neighborhood like those.

But towards downtown Beverly, there’s a little bit of Worcester in some of these areas. The first sign you’re in a dumpy part of town is when you see bed sheets for curtains:

I don’t know when this became a thing, or why they can’t just get some cheap blinds, but bed sheets for curtains is like putting up a sign that says, “weed for sale here!” Seriously though, there’s a lot of contrast in Beverly.

And you gotta watch out for shady looking dudes lurking by the railroad tracks.

And the neighbors who decorate their “lawns” with old furniture.

All in all, Beverly is a pretty nice place. It’s just got a lot more dumpy parts than Danvers and Lynnfield.

 

 

7. Peabody

Peabody is a lot like Beverly, except, 1) it doesn’t touch the ocean, and 2) the shitty parts are a lot shittier. In case you missed the news last night, two people were found stabbed to death on a porch on this street yesterday:

So….that’s not good. Shocking that this would happen in a neighborhood where people use broken down vending machines for lawn ornaments.

Peabody is filled with washed up athletes who spent two years at UMass majoring in economics, only to drop out because selling oxycotins became more appealing. I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that this is where kids from Peabody High go to buy their weed.

 

And this is what I like to refer to as a Peabody yard sale:

Another sign that you’re in the wrong part of town is when you start counting satellite dishes:

You can tell how long a tree has been in the woods by how many rings it has inside of it. You can tell how long ago a neighborhood turned to shit based on how many satellite dishes you can find in a square mile. Old satellite dishes are like merit badges for dooshnozzles.

Honestly though, most of Peabody doesn’t look like this:

The majority of Peabody is actually nice neighborhoods

But as you can see, a lot of those are newer homes. Clearly over the years the dooshnozzle factor has invaded the old neighborhoods, and those who couldn’t afford to move to Lynnfield, moved to West Peabody. But you can always tell where the 85 year old Portuguese woman who refuses to move out lives because of the grape vines in the back yard.

Classic. Every post-industrial city has an old woman who grows her own grapes in the backyard and sits on the stoop talking about the old days before “they all move in.”

 

 

8. Saugus

Saugus dogs might know how to play, but Saugus is a pit. It’s a post industrial iron city, so you see lots of stuff like this:

Saugus does have a coastline along the ocean, albeit a short one. This is what the beach looks like in Saugus:

Hot.

And the neighborhoods are cramped and looks like New Jersey.

And this is downtown.

Saugus sucks.

 

 

9. Salem

Salem is a great place to visit

but I’d rather kill myself than live there.  First of all, the traffic SUCKS, all hours of the day.

Because it’s historic, everything looks old and the streets are insanely narrow.

And when your town’s entire economy revolves around that one time in history when everyone lost their mind and murdered women and children because they all believed the mentally unstable town whore, your streets have a tendency to look like shit run over twice.

I’ll tell you what’s not a good sign – when a Family Dollar opens up in your neighborhood.

I dunno, I guess Salem’s not that bad. It’s just not very good either.

 

 

10. Lynn

As if this was ever in doubt. I’ve known what Lynn was since I was just a little child learning how to ride a turtle, mainly because I watched the 10:00 News. Like clockwork I could tune into Fox 25 and hear about the latest murder in this magical place I’d never been to before. Believe it or not, Lynn has one nice part of it – right by the beach…..boi!!!

But other than that Lynn is just a collection of vacant, overgrown lots,

Satellite dishes and bed sheet curtains,

and cramped streets,

Lynn is where drug dealers and hope go to die.

Oh yea, and if you speak English in Lynn, you’re fresh out of luck.

And the town common really is lovely isn’t it?

Look at all that breahtaking mud. Amazing. What young child doesn’t wanna go down to the park and roll around in a frozen puddle of broken dreams?

Next up is Western MA. I can think of one town in particular that we haven’t heard from in a few weeks, that needs a visit form the Tour de Turtle bone ride crew. Where do you think we should go to next. Make your case to have Turtleboy visit and critique your town in the comments and your dump village could be the next profiled on our Tour de Turtle.

 

 

 

 

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