RichardHowe.com – Voices from Lowell & Beyond

Seen & Heard: Vol. 3 

Welcome to this week’s edition of Seen and Heard, in which I catalog the most interesting things I’ve seen, heard and read over the previous seven days:

Film: Saturday Night (2024) – This movie depicts the 90 minutes leading up to the debut of the TV show Saturday Night LIve on October 11, 1975. It’s chaotic, funny, and dramatic, although not entirely true to life according to reports. However, by casting actors who resembled their real life counterparts and capturing the look and feel of the mid-1970s – no computers, cell phones, short hair, or natural fabrics – it gives anyone who watched the show back then a “you are there” experience. If I watched Saturday Night Live during that first season when I was a senior in high school, I don’t recall. But by the second season which debuted in the fall of 1976, Saturday Night Live had become a cultural phenomenon and everyone seemed to be watching. By then, I was a dormitory-living freshman at Providence College and it seemed that no matter what people did on Saturday nights, they found a TV at 11:30 PM to catch the show, which was radical for TV at the time and therefore very entertaining to a young audience. The movie Saturday Night, which received a 77% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, is streaming on Netflix. 

Book: Bread of Angels: A Memoir, by Patti Smith – Patti Smith, a singer-songwriter and poet, sometimes referred to as the “Godmother of Punk,” bridged the gap between the beat poetry generation of the 1960s and the punk movement of the 1970s. I confess that she was not on my radar until I read her 2010 memoir, Just Kids, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction. Smith has now written another memoir, Bread of Angels, a concisely written account of her life from her birth in 1946 up to the present. Along the way, she provides insightful sketches of pillars of post World War II American culture like William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Mapplethorpe, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. I was also amazed by the poverty she experienced growing up. Her father, a World War II veteran who seemed like a steady, straightforward man, worked in blue collar jobs but the family was relegated to dilapidated housing for years along with the families of other veterans until they could afford better housing. This sketch belies the prevailing assumption that returning veterans were rapidly boosted into the middle class by the GI Bill and other benefits. I’ve long known that those benefits were not equitably distributed on racial grounds, but this book suggests that unevenness was more widespread. 

Newspaper: “Skyscraper: Chara adds 33 to rafters with Bruins’ other legends,” Boston Globe, by Kevin Paul Dupont – On Thursday evening, January 15, 2026, the Boston Bruins “retired” number 33 which  was worn by Zdeno Chara from 2006 to 2020, including the Stanley Cup winning 2011 season. A native of Czechoslovakia and at 6 ‘9”, the tallest person to ever play in the National Hockey League, Chara was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2025. Although Chara accomplished great things for the Bruins, my affection for him began here in Lowell, where he played for the Lowell Lock Monsters in their inaugural 1998 season. He only played 23 games with the Lock Monsters before being elevated to the NHL’s New York Islanders. In addition to the Bruins and Islanders, he also played for the Ottawa Senators and the Washington Capitals. 

Podcast: “How private equity kills companies and communities” on Decoder with Nilay Patel – Many of the podcasts I listen to go on break at Christmas and replay a past episode or two. That was the case this week with Decoder, a show hosted by Nilay Patel, the editor-in-chief of The Verge, an online newspaper that focuses on business and technology. In this episode, Patel interviewed Megan Greenwell about her book, Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream. Greenwell argues that private equity firms prioritize extracting wealth over building sustainable businesses. While private equity firms contend they make the acquired companies more efficient, Greenwell demonstrates that PE firms load companies with debt and aggressively cut costs which leaves the acquired companies hollowed out while the PE firms profit from management fees and the sale of assets. Private equity has become ubiquitous in the American economy, scooping up established businesses in healthcare, local media, real estate, retail, and petcare. Private equity often operates below the radar so most people aren’t even aware of its involvement until after a long established store or hospital goes bankrupt and disappears. 

Television: Houston Texans v. New England Patriots on ABC/ESPN – How could this not be included? Although I write about sports frequently in Seen and Heard, I’m not a superfan. I’ll rarely stay up past 9pm to watch a game, and don’t bet or belong to fantasy leagues. Still, I enjoy watching a well-played game, no matter what the sport, and that includes the National Football League. I also lived through several decades of inept Patriots teams and truly did appreciate the amazing achievements earlier this century. Now, after an interlude of mediocrity or worse, the team is good, exciting to watch, and, with the news that the star quarterback of their next opponent broke his ankle and is out for the season, it seems that fate which so often bent towards the Patriots through their dominant time, again favors them. All that said, Sunday’s game was an ugly one. The ball must have been super slippery given all the turnovers committed by the two quarterbacks, but a win is a win. On to Denver!

YouTube: “CFP National Championship Highlights” on ESPN College Football Channel – I have access to all kinds of video content on my (relatively) big screen TV, but I constantly find myself scrolling through YouTube for things to watch. Because I’m on an “early to bed, early to rise” schedule, I rarely stay up to watch evening games on TV, so I’ve found watching highlight videos on YouTube the next day allows me to experience the game action with just a 24 hour delay. That’s how I consumed Monday night’s college football championship game between Miami and Indiana. Last week I wrote that I’d be cheering for Indiana and my loyalty was rewarded with the Hoosiers winning 27 to 21 in a very exciting game. The win marks an unbelievable turnaround for Indiana which is historically one of the worst programs in college football. That all changed in 2023 when the school hired Curt Cignetti as coach. I observed last week that I’d never seen Cignetti smile, but he finally did last night, broadly and joyously, after his team’s victory. The game’s iconic play took place with 9 minutes to go. Up 17 to 14, Indiana had the ball on the Miami 12 yard line. It was fourth down with about six yards to go for a first down. Cignetti sent the field goal team onto the field but then called a time out and replaced them with his offense. The play was a quarterback draw, a rarely used running play, and Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza not only made the first down as he was clobbered by Miami defenders, but then spun off those hits and dove into the end zone for a touchdown. There was plenty of time left and Miami was driving down field for what would have been the winning touchdown when Indiana intercepted a pass with 46 seconds left to seal the victory and the national championship.

“It was a very good year”

“It was a very good year” – (PIP #93)

By Louise Peloquin

     The beginning of a new year always brings forecasts, predictions and plans. L’Etoile tried to cover them diligently, but always with a special local focus. 1926, Lowell’s centennial, was expected to be a very good year.

L’Etoile – January 5, 1926

Prospects for progress in 1926

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The happy predictions for 1926 were abundantly accomplished. – A continuation of this progress is expected.

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     New York, 5. – Following one of the most prosperous years in our history, the new year arrives with indications of continuing prosperity, at least during its first half. Finance and industry leaders were almost unanimous in their business forecasts for this period but many were cautiously restrained as to predictions for the entire year.

     Rarely were positive forecasts more largely materialized than in 1925. Throughout the entire year, tangible proof of improvement was visible in commerce and industry, as demonstrated by the record number of railway shipments, unprecedented business during the holidays and substantial profits in railway and industrial corporate income, transmitted to shareholders in the form of higher dividends. This progress not only contributed to restoring European political and economic stability but also indicated that the present Congressional session would pass very few restrictive laws affecting financial enterprises or railways.

     As a business barometer, the Stockmarket functioned with unquestionable precision. 1925 business prosperity was predicted in the Fall of 1924 and the continuing strength of stock and bond transactions indicated  that the time had not yet come to expect a reversal in the trend. At the foundation of business, the easy flow of money stimulated the Stockmarket during most of 1925. 1926 begins with even more solid conditions.

     The traditional reduction of business activities during the holidays did not highlight anything interesting last week. It was generally admitted, however, that the lull in production and distribution would be short-lived, allowing many manufacturing enterprises to complete their inventories and replace machines while waiting for a rebound in larger scale operations.

     With operations at almost full capacity in numerous sectors, many industries closed the most extraordinary year in their history, according to Dun’s Trade Review.

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     This is the first article of L’Etoile’s extensive Lowell centennial coverage.  During the next few weeks, our “Peeks Into the Past” will take us through the celebration preparation process, from setting a budget to organizing a parade.

L’Etoile – January 4, 1926

THE CENTENNIAL OF THIS CITY

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Lowell will celebrate in March and in June the 100th anniversary of the incorporation of the municipality of Lowell. – The committee is working on the preparations.

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     The New Year will bring Lowellians the 100th anniversary of the municipality of Lowell. The exact date of the legislative act incorporating Lowell as a town, separate from Chelmsford, was March 1, 1826. Without delay, the citizens of what was formerly called East Chelmsford were informed of Justice Joseph Looke’s March 2, 1826 mandate requesting that Kirk Booth summon an assembly of voters to proceed to establishing a municipal government. The assembly took place in the old stone house on Pawtucket Street, now known as the Ayer Home for Children.

     Samuel Adams Coburn, first muncipal clerk, owned the tavern which had gained a grand reputation everywhere in the East. The first “selectmen” chosen according to the incorporation act were Nathaniel Wright, Samuel Batchelder and Oliver M. Whipple.

    The town continued to exist for 10 years and, in 1836, it became a city. Approximately three thousand people lived in the different parts of the municipality at the time of its incorporation and some agglomerations were concentrated around Pawtucket Falls, Merrimack Manufacturing Company, Saint Anne’s Church and lower Belvedere.

     The town counted almost 18,000 inhabitants when it became a city in 1836, indicating its remarkable development in this decade – the quintupling of its original population.

     Consequently, on March 1, the people of Lowell will commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the foundation of the town with a grand formal program at Memorial Auditorium. Later, probably at the end of June, a week of festivities will include a large civic parade, musical programs and seven days known as “Old Home Week.”

     Lowell, as we well know, owes its name to Francis Cabot Lowell who was, according to general opinion, the author of cotton manufacturing in America because he invented and financed a practically-powered loom for Americans. He was also interested in the social and business aspects of textile mill management.

     Many people were saddened to see that “Wamesit”, the original indigenous name of the agglomeration at Pawtucket Falls, was not chosen. However, from a historical perspective, “Lowell” seems to be appropriate for a large manufacturing city.

     According to present plans, the centennial celebration will be the grandest fête Lowell has ever witnessed. A large executive committee, composed of more than 40 citizens, oversees the different departments and will be assisted by a group of 100 or more. At the beginning of last Fall, the first planning phase was entrusted to a bureau of seven executive committee directors presided by Frank K. Stearns.

     This committee has held weekly assemblies for some time and, thanks to its work, in a few days, a general assembly of the entire executive committee will address all of the questions be studied and discussed. Up until now, we know that the large public commemorative exercises of March 1 will include speeches by national, State, and city civil servants, along with a musical program. Later, when the warmer temperatures make events more attractive, a week of celebrations will take place with festivities including balls, parades, concerts, etc.

     The committee of directors does not yet know whether to opt for organizing a large public parade of historic dimensions or an industrial exhibition. This question will be included in a report for the next assembly. The bureau has always had a great many ideas and plans on which the executive committee will be invited to take action as soon as possible. It now seems that, from now to the celebration, the Lowellians preparing the event will be very busy. (1)

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1) Translations by Louise Peloquin.

Unfinished legislative business, pt. 1: End-of-Life Options bill by Marjorie Arons-Barron

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog.

Should people suffering with excruciating pain in the last six months of their lives have the legal option to self-administer doctor-prescribed medicine for a more gentle passing? The fight for this right has been going on for more than a decade on Beacon Hill.

There is some encouraging news. Before the end of 2025, the Mass. Legislature’s Joint Committee on Health Care Financing quickly approved a bill enabling a medically assisted path to a more peaceful death under clearly articulated guidelines. Identified as The End of Life Options Act (S.1486), it now makes its way to Senate Ways & Means, the final stop before going to the Senate floor. The House too must follow the same procedure so that, sooner rather than later, the bill can make it to the floor.

The Ways & Means Committee has often been a code name for a legislative graveyard, where bills go to die. This committee was as far as the bill got during the 2024 legislative session. That historic inaction mustn’t happen this time, but its success depends on regular folks, you and me, reaching out to pressure their state senators and representatives. Since this is an election year ensuring an early end to their work schedule, our legislators should complete action and pass the bill within the next few months.

The public has made clear it wants the option of a less tortured death.  Three quarters of the population or more favor it. (While the strongest institutional opposition comes from the Church and some disability advocates, according to Beacon Research, two thirds of Catholics and 71 percent of Protestants support this approach to end-of-life care.) The reasons are clear.

Stories abound about dying seniors, pummeled physically and emotionally, who have chosen to refuse food and drink until their body shuts down, essentially starving themselves to a gruesome death rather than having to endure months more of excruciating pain and little to no quality of life. Others with dire prognoses have secreted away pills to self-administer upon reaching the end stage, only to have deteriorated to the point when they are physically unable to follow through on their expressed intentions.

Since first introduced here, 12 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws to pass just such humane measures. Oregon has had such a law for 28 years. Seven other states are actively working on proposals this year. Our state legislature has never even sent the matter to the floor for a vote. In the last session, one hundred of the state’s legislators co-sponsored it, and many others privately indicated support.

Those who do not favor having control over their end-of-life health decisions don’t have to exercise the option. For adults who rightly insist such compassionate choice is their right, there are clear-cut guidelines to prevent abuses. Governor Maura Healey has indicated she would support a bill with such guidelines.  Check out these guidelines I have detailed in a recent blog. For a patient to exercise that end-of-life care option would require approvals by multiple professionals, including medical doctors and mental health practitioners. The whole process has a carefully designed paper trail.

My own representative, Greg Schwartz, is a physician. From his personal interactions, he said he knows this issue is very important to a lot of people. He believes the multiple levels of signing off provide adequate protection, and, he says, he feels comfortable that it won’t be abused. While the fate of most bills rests with the leadership, his view as a doctor could bring added credibility to the debate.

This is about death with dignity. It’s about exercising the same choice about our end-stage medical treatment that we have depended upon throughout our adult lives. We should be able to ask a physician for a prescription to take ourselves when we can go no further. Nearly a quarter of Americans live in states where this road to death with dignity is available. Enlightened Massachusetts, usually a leader in such matters, should provide no less.

There’s a lot that we may not be able to change in today’s national political environment, but we do have the power to influence passing of this statewide measure to provide compassionate care at the end of life for dying patients. It’s little enough to ask.

Lowell Politics: January 18, 2026

The January 13, 2026, Lowell City Council meeting began with a brief presentation by the Lowell City of Learning committee on UNESCO’s recent decision to add Lowell to its Global Network of Learning Cities. This is the first time a U.S. city has received this honor.

This network is designed to help cities promote lifelong learning as a tool to address urban challenges like social inclusion and economic sustainability. The “learning city” concept seeks to redefine what it means to learn by transforming everyday spaces like streets, libraries, and workplaces into areas of education. This achievement has the potential to realize Patrick Mogan’s “educative city” vision, where residents engage in learning opportunities from birth through death. Additionally, the recognition will highlight Lowell’s “Frontrunner City” status and is a significant milestone for the city’s 2026 bicentennial.

Led by retired UMass Lowell professor John Wooding and numerous volunteers, the effort to gain this designation began in 2018. One complication is that during Trump I, the United States withdrew from UNESCO, which is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and although the Biden administration rejoined the organization, the US has again withdrawn during Trump II. Nevertheless, it seems that UNESCO and the city of Lowell do not see the non-membership status of the United States as an obstacle to Lowell’s participation in the program.

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Council Kim Scott had a motion requesting that the council impose a “temporary moratorium on the permitting and approval of new or expanded data center facilities in the City of Lowell until zoning and planning regulations are updated to protect residents, including required buffer zones, noise standards, screening and protections against water and electric rate impacts.”

The only datacenter I know of in or contemplated in Lowell is the Markley Group in Scott’s South Lowell district. The Markley Group came to Lowell in 2015 when it purchased the former Prince Spaghetti manufacturing plant located off Moore Street. The company transformed the site into a high-security data center and cloud computing hub, which officially opened in early 2016. As a data center provider, the facility allows other businesses to house their servers and critical IT infrastructure in a secure, “always-on” environment. The site itself has a legacy of industrial use spanning many decades prior to Markley’s acquisition.

The company’s recent history in Lowell has been marked by efforts to expand its infrastructure to meet the rising global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) data processing. These expansion attempts have sought to increase the backup power capabilities which means more backup generators and more diesel fuel stored on site to power those generators. These efforts have encountered significant pushback from residents living adjacent to the facility and from those concerned about the environmental impact of burning diesel fuel for electricity.

In the face of council discontent with the most recent Markley expansion request in October 2025, Markley withdrew its petition, perhaps planning to resubmit it after the November city council election. This motion by Scott can be seen as an attempt to pre-empt such a request. The council referred the motion to the city’s Law Department to draft the requested regulatory amendments.

This motion transcends the immediate concerns of neighbors and taps into growing discontent with datacenters both in the US and across the world. When Markley first came to Lowell, “cloud computing” was at the forefront of the tech industry. Everything was moving to the web, but for a company to host and operate its own website required a substantial and sometimes unaffordable investment in computer infrastructure. To solve that problem, companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google created warehouses filled with webservers then leased space on those servers to customers requiring a web presence. In return for rental payments received, the host company would provide security, redundancy and “always on” backup capabilities (like diesel generators that would power the servers when the electricity went out). This is the service that Markley provided when it first came to Lowell.

Now, the tech industry has changed substantially with AI (artificial intelligence) dominating everything. But unlike cloud computing that just stored and retrieved data from servers, AI facilities are constantly creating new data which requires much more powerful computers. More powerful computers require more electricity to operate and create more heat which requires more fans for cooling. The fans create more noise. The electricity demand stresses the power grid and raises energy costs for everyone. Because they must be “always on” these facilities need greater backup which means more generators and more fuel stored onsite.

I don’t know what kind of computing is done inside the Markley Group facility, but whether it provides AI processing or not, it may get blamed for it, not unreasonably, by the public and by city officials.

As City Councilor Sean McDonough observed during the debate on this motion, communities across the country “are playing regulatory catchup” with AI companies. However, the ability of cities like Lowell to regulate data centers is being challenged by the Trump Administration which claims that permitting the rapid growth of AI is a national security requirement and that is would be unreasonable for AI companies to deal with 50 sets of state restrictions and perhaps thousands of local regulations (such as those now contemplated by Lowell).

Opponents of this view argue that our federalist system has always empowered states and municipalities with the power to regulate the health, safety, and welfare of their residents and that the Trump Administration has repeatedly protected the interest of tech billionaires while disregarding the negative consequences faced by ordinary people.

Lowell has now entered that discussion.

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A representative of the Lowell Folk Festival appeared before the council to raise awareness of the fiscal challenges facing the event due to cuts to its federal funding. The 2026 Festival, which will be the 39th, will cost $1 million, so there is a great need for substantially increased community financial support.

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The city council ended the meeting by going into Executive Session to discuss the ownership status of the Lowell Senior Center on Broadway. The land the Senior Center sits upon was purchased by the city in 1869 (not a typo) and was used as the DPW headquarters for more than a century. In 2001, as part of the Acre Urban Revitalization and Development Project, the city sold the property to developers who renovated an existing building and constructed an addition. The city leased the property back from the developers to be used for the Senior Center. The lease was for 20 years and, at the end of its term, ownership was supposed to revert to the city. The lease should have ended in 2024, but the developers continue to own the property.

Notwithstanding the plain language of the original lease agreement, there is some ambiguity. Although I no longer practice law, over my 40 years as a lawyer in Massachusetts, I’ve learned that legal issues are rarely black and white but almost always fall into some gray area. For example, the original lease agreement might expressly state that any amendments must be in writing and agreed to by the parties. However, if the parties have acted otherwise and verbally agreed to modifications, if one party then acted in reliance on that verbal agreement, the other party, out of equitable considerations, may be bound by that verbal modification. I have no idea if that’s the case here, but it is a possibility, especially when you consider that during the lifetime of this lease there have been five different city managers (Cox, Lynch, Murphy, Donoghue, and Golden) speaking for the city with all being bound by the actions of their predecessors.

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On March 4, 2026, at 6 pm, Charlie Gargiulo will give a book talk about his memoir, Legends of Little Canada, at Boston’s West End Museum. There is a nominal fee ($12.51) with tickets available from Eventbrite. However, the event will also be virtual, so if you’d like to participate without going into Boston, you can do that too. Here’s what the Museum wrote about that: “If you would like to attend virtually, please purchase a ticket and email jaydie@thewestendmuseum.org. Those living outside of Route 128 may contact Jaydie for a discount code.”

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If you’d like a break from Lowell politics, I’ve launched a new weekly feature on richardhowe.com. Each Wednesday, I publish “Seen & Heard” in which I review the most interesting things I’ve seen and heard on streaming services, linear TV, newsletters, newspapers, books and podcasts. Please check out my first two installments and then look for new versions each Wednesday.