RichardHowe.com – Voices from Lowell & Beyond

The Holidays in 1960s Lowell 

The Holidays in 1960s Lowell

By Leo Racicot

Every year, as Valentine’s Day approached, our teachers would get us excited with mention of a possible party (if we were good) and we set about with our parents buying Valentine cards to handout to our classmates on the day itself. The nuns made us buy a card for each student in the class, so that no one would be left out. In the 1960s, these cards weren’t elaborate ones. Usually flat items that didn’t open like regular greeting cards, they had some quick, cute saying or wish on the front. Parties included soda and candies. I see stores still sell the miniature, colored hearts, also with little sayings on top: BE MINE, XOXOX, SWEET HEART. My favorite candy was also the most fun to eat — candy necklaces and bracelets that you ate your way through, one candy at a time.

Saint Patrick’s Day (March 17th) for Saint Patrick’s school and parish was a big deal. A huge citywide celebration was held downtown at Lowell Memorial Auditorium. We students of the whole school prepared Irish songs for our number in the program. The auditorium, in those days, had a large seating area just above and behind the stage. Students were seated there, dressed in white shirts, green bow ties for the boys, green ribbons for the girls. The whole night was very exciting. When I was a kid, I had adenoid problems and always breathed not through my nose but through my mouth. After the show, my family would say, “We saw you! You did great!”  Puzzled, I asked how they spotted me in among all the other kids and they said, “You were the one with your mouth open the whole time.” The most thrilling act of the night was, for sure, the Irish dancers performing the Irish jig. Hearing them stomp out their clog movements on the wooden auditorium stage sent shivers up everyone’s spine.

Easter time, for parochial school students, meant EasterSeal drives. EasterSeals was a national nonprofit charitable organization. Students were handed out packets of these to sell. Prizes went to the top sellers. I never could sell many and my mother, feeling bad, would try to sell some for me to her friends. Ditto Aunt Marie who’d take and pitch them to her boss and co-workers. Of course, there was always “The Shining Star” who somehow managed to sell eight or nine hundred books of stamps and walk off with the trophy. This reminds me of other stamps-selling drives of that time: Holy Childhood stamps and Christmas seal drives at Christmastime. And have I mentioned the very popular S&H Green Stamps of the 1960s? These were stamps that, when collected, added up to money that the consumer could then redeem for items such as pen-and-pencil sets, household knick-knacks, appliances, that sort of thing. Aunt Marie was very much into it and one of my sister’s and my chores was to sit with Marie at her kitchen table, wetting and pasting the Green stamps into the booklets. It took a lot of stamps to buy a toaster!

Whether you were making your First Holy Communion or not, May was always a special time in Lowell Catholic homes. You always knew or knew of someone making their First Communion, Confirmation or participating in May Altar processions   in honor of The Blessed Mother. It was a season of all-white outfits, white veils, lilacs everywhere in people’s yards and gardens. Something I’ll never forget — my godmother, Theresa Geoffroy, offered, as her gift to me on my First Communion, to pay for my whole outfit — white suit, white tie, white shoes even. My mother and aunt refused to allow her to do this, saying it was too expensive and they’d like to buy it for me themselves. Well, Godmother Geoffroy got so mad, she never spoke to any of us and I never saw her again. I still remember my mother, walking with me up to the photographer, George’s of Lowell, on Textile Avenue, to have my picture taken with Jesus. This left a lasting impression on me, and I was always a very holy child, believing the Church’s teachings completely. I think most families in those days had a son who wanted to become a priest or whom they wished would become one, and I spent hours in my room playing Mass — I’d use a glass covered in a cloth for the chalice, a colorful washcloth for the pall, a piece of cardboard for the paten, flattened out pieces of bread for hosts. I’d throw a sheet over my shoulders for a chasuble, and prayed my way through my junior missalette.  In 1975, after college, I entered Missionhurst Seminary, taking my studies at Catholic University, Washington D.C. Two of the guys I entered with, Hugh Wade and Jack Spainhour, stayed and became lifelong career priests. I decided the priesthood wasn’t for me and stole away, quite suddenly, in the middle of one night.

Every Memorial Day began with Marie taking the family to Saint Joseph’s Cemetery in Chelmsford, to place flowers and a little American flag on Papa’s grave. Papa had served with the horse cavalry in India in World War II. I treasure many photos he took over there, of natives in their native towns. There are a few of Papa riding high atop a jungle elephant. After, we’d head downtown to get a good spot with others to watch the Memorial Day Parade. I can’t find the words to say how much I looked forward all year to parades: the marching, the color guards, the cheerleaders shaking their pom-poms, raising high their batons. And The colors!  Bright orange. Bright yellow. Bright purple. Bright red. The brightness of the day. The ground beneath us shivered and shook from the music vibrations, our hearts shivered and shook along with it. Lowell’s love for putting on parades and citywide displays is now a thing of the long ago. I haven’t seen or heard of one here in decades. Maybe too costly to organize?

Fourth of July carnivals on South Common were a staple of summer celebrations. Our mother would walk us from our house in The Acre all the way up Thorndike Street, along with dozens of other carnival goers walking the same way, bumper-to-bumper traffic to our right. Everybody was heading in the same direction. Independence Day excitement filled the air. Festivities offered something for everyone: best-looking baby contests, pie-eating contests, tug-of-war competitions, antique cars, games and more games. And after, the great fireworks display could be viewed from many vantage points in the city. In years when we didn’t go to the carnival, all we had to do was go out in our yard and look up at the sky.

Next in the holiday calendar came Halloween. The race to find the best costume started in September. When Diane and I were young, Marie, who lived in The Highlands, would drive us around that neighborhood, where the best candy and handouts could be had. Those plastic masks were so suffocating and sweaty (If I close my eyes, I can still smell them) but well worth it once we hit the candy streets. Trick-or-Treating was safe in those days, not the perilous venture it became in years-to-come. And the loot and booty we took in, all by just opening our bags wide: every kind of candy you can imagine, sometimes even money!

Every Thanksgiving was spent at our grandmother’s house until she passed away in the year of The Bicentennial, 1976. Then, all family gatherings came to an end when a grief-stricken Marie moved unexpectedly out to Las Vegas. I looked forward every Thanksgiving to her picking our mother, Diane and me up in her Rambler (she always bought Ramblers) to bring us over to her and Nana’s place. Marie loved holidays and always had the whole house decorated top-to-bottom. My favorite part of this holiday, other than eating turkey dinner (still my favorite meal) was helping Marie with the cooking. She let me help her with most all the preparations and I learned to feel cozy in a kitchen and around a stove, which held me in good stead in later years when I got to know Julia Child and M.F.K. Fisher in their homes. One year, though, I wasn’t paying attention and nearly took off the middle finger of my left hand with a sharp blade while slicing celery. The blood was everywhere, and Marie took a long time getting the bleeding to stop. It was scary. I still have the scar. Of course, what holiday get-together would be complete without the traditional family argument?  All the old sorrows, betrayals and disappointments would be resurrected before dessert was over. I think most readers can relate to this unavoidable part of holiday gatherings, if they’re being honest.

1960s Lowell at Christmastime was a child’s delight. All downtown was lit up like, well, like Christmas!  City Hall was covered completely in lights, front and sides. Bon Marche Department Store, too, was a magical wonderland of sounds and sights, its windows a mecca for families day-and-night all the way through to December 25th, and beyond to Little Christmas, January 6th. A favorite fun trip was piling in the car and driving all around Lowell and its suburbs to see what homeowners had done to decorate their homes and properties. In those times, every other house was a feast for the eyes. The dazzling lights display put up by Saint Francis Seminary out on River Road in Andover was a popular destination for locals. And the Poor Clares’ convent, also in Andover, had the most unforgettable collection of santons, delightful terracotta Nativity figurines that originated in Provence, many of which were made in shades of color I’d never seen before. The whole presentation by the sisters was something out of a dream. My most memorable Christmas was the morning I woke to find a brand, new bicycle in the living room beside the Christmas tree. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how Santa got an English racer down the chimney. I thought, truly, Santa Claus must be magic.

*     *     *     *

Brother and sister breaking the Thanksgiving wishbone.

Candy Hearts

Fireworks over Pawtucket Falls

Irish step dancers

Leo’s First Holy Communion 1960

Lowell Memorial Day parade

S&H Green Stamps

Santons de Provence Nativity Figures

St. Francis Seminary 40,000 Christmas lights

“Lowell has responded splendidly”

“Lowell has responded splendidly” – (PIP #75)

By Louise Peloquin

      The National Defense Day program was one of the items on the September 3^rd 1924 Lowell City Council meeting agenda. (1) 

Posting it seems appropriate on the eve of America’s 250^th birthday.

L’Étoile – Front page, September 12, 1924

A PARADE OF 7000 IN OUR STREETS

_____

To demonstrate loyalty to the flag and the determination to die for it. – Departure from North Common.  – Military aviators in the city to perform stunts.

_____

     Enrollment for the parade continues until this evening. Preparation is finished and all we are waiting for is good weather for the city of Lowell to hold the most beautiful parade in its history demonstrating its loyalty to the country.

     The parade will depart this evening at 7 from North Common. (2) There will certainly be 6,000 people in the ranks but we expect 7,500.

The parade will include all of the Lowell National Guard contingents, school military organizations, the Reserve Corps, veterans organizations and all of the city’s fraternal societies.

     A United States Army pilot will fly above the city by order of the War Department. He will arrive here at noon and will perform this evening.

     Captain Donald R. McIntyre. D.S.C. will serve as Master of Ceremonies for the aviation exercises after the parade in front of Memorial Auditorium. (3)

     If the crowd is too large for the public to assemble inside Memorial Auditorium where James Williams, editor of the Boston Transcript, will be the main speaker, Liberty Hall will also be used.

     Captain Joseph A. Molloy will direct the troops in the auditorium.

     When the committee finishes enrollment at its office in the old Courier-Citizen building in Kearney Square, there will be 3,500 people registered. This number is in addition to the military corps and city organizations participating in the parade.

     The mayor will not review the parade. He will walk at the head of his Reserve Corps company. 

     City Hall is decorated with American flags and banners displaying the national colors. Shops along the parade route have followed the mayor’s counsel to decorate with the American colors.

     City Council members and army officers will be on the platform reviewing the parade. We will see General Malvern Hill Barnum; Colonel B. P. O’Bren; Colonel Alexander Gregg; Lieutenant Brown; James T. Williams, editor of the Boston Transcript, and Congressman John Jacob Rogers.

     The speakers to close the solemnity of National Defense Day at Memorial Auditorium will be: James Williams, editor of the Boston Transcript; Lieutenant R. C. Moffatt; Mayor Donovan; Reverend John J. McGarry, D. C. L., and Reverend Percy Thomas. Dana Palmer will be the Master of Ceremonies at this meeting.

     Enrollment will end at 4 this afternoon.

     Mothers of soldiers killed in the Great War will have reserved seats at Memorial Auditorium.

     The following stores have graciously provided flowers, tobacco, and refreshments to the organizing committee: John J. Moloney; James R. Kenney; Harvey B. Greene; Samuel Scott; P. K. Smoke Shop; W. H. I. Hayes; Peter Andreoli; Robertson Tobacco Co.; Dudley L. Page; Mr. Rousseau who sells “Eat-A” donuts; and Harry H. Cole. Sargent Timothy Kimball launched the requests for donations.

General Orders, # 1

1. – What follows is public for all interested.
2. – The parade will form at North Common. The Chief administrator’s and Chief of Staff’s headquarters on the common will be at the angle of Common and Salem Streets.
3. – An aide will report the arrival of each participating group to the Chief of Staff.
4. – The parade route will be as follows: from North Common to Salem Street, down Cabot, Merrimack and East Merrimack Streets to Memorial Auditorium. Departure is at 7.

5. – The Mayor, City Council and guests will review the parade at City Hall.
6. – Upon arrival at the Auditorium, all of the organizations will maintain their ranks and positions during the ceremony.
7. – Battery B, 102^ndartillery, under the direction of Captain Harold Mather, will fire the canon for the salute. 
8. – At the end of the ceremonies, all of the organizations will be invited to march in the Auditorium for the public assembly.

There will be reserved seats for the organizations participating in the parade.

9. – The parade includes numerous army corps, civil and social organizations.

10.Lowell City Council, the Boy Scouts of America, whose members offered their services as messengers or traffic assistants, will need to report to Charles W. Barton, Field Scout Executive, at 6 to receive their post at Memorial Auditorium. 

11.The American flag will be the only national banner carried at the parade. Societies, Unions, Clubs and Lodges will be able to carry their respective banners. 

 By order of C., T. KITTEREDGE

Chief administrator

L’ÉTOILE – Front page, September 13, 1924

GREAT PROOF OF OUR CITY’S PATRIOTISM

About 4000 people paraded in our streets last night, attesting to their determination to rally around the flag in times of danger. 

BEAUTIFUL SPEECH AT THE AUDITORIUM

Beautiful patriotic spectacle. – Salute to the flag. – The canon fires. – All of the groups, clubs and societies of the city participated.

     Last night a celebration took place downtown causing more emotion in Lowellians’ hearts than during any other public demonstration of patriotism since the Armistice was signed. It was National Defense Day. Last night, when the flags flew and the last echo of the speakers’ voices dissipated, no one questioned Lowellians’ solid loyalty to their country. They proved this by going out, forming one of the largest parades ever seen here, filling the sidewalks along the parade route by the thousands, applauding the school representatives and members of the bar who hoisted the Stars and Stripes.

     The parade formed at North Common and left a bit after 7 to head towards Memorial Auditorium. 4,000 people were in the ranks. A group of police officers marched, followed by the parade leaders, the military corps and, at the end, members of various city organizations. Several excellent bands played music. We particularly noticed the following: the 385^th Artillery Reserve Corps, Regan, Lowell Cadet, Lowell High School, Anglo-American veterans of the Great War and the St. Peter and O. M. I. Cadets.

     The crowd warmly applauded the Civil War veterans. The American Legion closed the parade ranks lead by Commander Colin C. MacDonald. Once the parade had passed, the crowd left the sidewalks and went to Memorial Auditorium for the open-air exercises.

     Musicians performed on the Auditorium steps. The flag was lowered and, from the other side of the river, one could hear the 21 canon blasts for the national salute.

     Thousands of people attended the public meeting in Memorial Auditorium. On the stage were the following guests: Brigadier General Malvern H. Barbard; James T. Williams; Mayor Donovan; Major Dana Palmer; Reverend John J. McGarry, D. C. L.; Reverend Percy E. Thomas; Robert Brown; Mrs. Nellie Usher; John F. McBride; Colin C. MacDonald; James J. Gallagher; Franck K. Stearns and Daniel Cosgrove.

     Mayor Donovan was the first speaker at the Auditorium meeting. His speech was short, very appropriate, and began as follows:

“Lowell has responded splendidly to the President’s call to observe the Day of National Defense. As mayor, I wish to congratulate the patriotic service that you have rendered in taking part in the celebration.”

     Abby John J. McGarry, pastor of Saint Patrick’s Parish was the next speaker. He opened his speech with an anecdote about an American in a foreign country who is asked if he is a prince or a general. His response: “I am the greatest of anyone of these; I am an American citizen.” The speaker continued to elaborate on being an American citizen. 

     Then, Lieutenant Robert Brown spoke about the American aviators’ trip around the world and about how the development of aviation would impact the country. 

     The special speaker for the celebration was James T. Williams, editor of the Boston Transcript. He reminded everyone that the previous day was the anniversary of the Battle of Saint Mihiel…. (4 & 5) 

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 1)   https://richardhowe.com/2025/04/08/back-to-the-city-council-1924/

PIP #64, posted on April 8, 2025, covers the September 3^rd  1924 Lowell City Council meeting agenda:

The City Council met last night at 9 for a special session opened by president Gallagher.

     Lieutenant Arthur H. Brown obtained the privilege to take the floor. He presented the National Defense Day program and asked the Council to review the parade at City Hall at 6:45 and invited the Council members to attend the public assembly at 8 at Lowell Auditorium. The invitation was accepted.

2)   “North Common – 413 Fletcher Street – 7.69 acres – swimming pool; 2 basketball courts; 1 softball field; 2 handball courts; playground; community garden; amphitheater. This land was purchased by the city of Lowell in 1845 from the Proprietors of the Locks and Canals along with the South Common. Together, they were the first public parks in Lowell and were referred to as “the lungs of the city.”

From Richard Howe’s June 22, 2025 Lowell History article.

https://richardhowe.com/2025/06/22/lowell-history-june-22-2025/

3)   Lowell Memorial Auditorium Greenspace – 52 East Merrimack Street – 2.22 acres – passive green space. This is the green space that surrounds the Lowell Memorial Auditorium which was constructed in 1922. The parcel is home to many military monuments and memorials.

From Richard Howe’s June 22, 2025 Lowell History article. Link in footnote 2.

4)   The September 12^th to 15^th 1918 battle of Saint-Mihiel in northeastern France’s Meuse department was a major one during World War I. The American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) and 110,000 French troops, under the command of General John J. Pershing, fought against German positions.

5)   Translations by Louise Peloquin.

An accomplished journalist’s candid memoir by Marjorie Arons-Barron

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

Lost and Found: Coming of Age in the Washington Press Corps by Ellen Hume captures the idealism of a young reporter, from her early days as a cub in California, moving to the L.A. Times and its Washington Bureau, and her intuitive skills in ferreting out the truth behind the headlines and press releases.  As she got traction, she moved on to the Wall Street Journal, broadening her contacts and sources in the political world, fighting the ingrained sexism of the news media establishment, and unearthing the hypocrisies in centers of political power.

She embraced the aphorism which guided my profession as a journalist, namely, that the mission was “to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”  (Chicago Evening Post editorialist and humorist Peter Finley Dunne had put the original line in the mouth of his fictional wise bartender, Mr. Dooley.) Increasingly it is the comfortable who have the power to call the shots regarding what to cover in the news and how to present it. She also reflects on the compromises that are made when writers are having dinners and socializing regularly with those whom they are covering.

Full disclosure: Ellen is a friend, one whom I admired from afar before I met her personally. While she is a little younger than I, I took delight in this book because so many of our experiences overlapped. Hers, of course, were on a larger landscape. So much resonated. When she was pounding shoe leather covering the nuclear event at Three Mile Island, I was involved in a program debating the fate of nuclear power for The Advocates on PBS.  We both cut our Washington reportorial teeth covering Jimmy Carter’s Presidency. She accompanied her husband, John Shattuck, when he became U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic, and I smiled at her observation of how previous ambassador Shirley Temple Black’s dog had stained the expensive carpet in the palatial ambassador’s residence.  My husband and I had met that dog, a gassy boxer, when we spent an evening with then-chain-smoking ambassador Black in Prague, along with other editorialists in 1990.

We were both lucky to be in journalism before the market was fragmented by cable, the onslaught of Fox News brand of tabloid journalism, and the ugliness of social media, which is inherently inimical to the dispassionate discussion of civic issues. The idea of “alternative facts” was not a serious reality. And working in the media in the post-Watergate era conferred on practitioners a sense of important mission.

Hume worked for the dominant national print media. In what passed for the Golden Era of broadcast journalism, there were just three networks, NBC, CBS and ABC. On the local level, I had the advantage of working for the dominant station in the region, with a potential market every night of three million viewers.  Back then, in print and broadcast, there was a firewall between straight news and opinion writing, which many readers and viewers failed to understand, but a journalist could make a difference on both sides of that divide.

Hume also had a major impact in academia.  She taught at Central European University in Hungary, at MIT and Harvard. She was one of 12 commissioners of the White House Commission om Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy. She remains a civic activist today.

The beauty of Hume’s memoir is her candor about her struggles in a male-dominated profession, the sometimes- insurmountable stresses a high-pressured job can place on a marriage, the pitfalls when one makes mistakes, and the disillusionment that happens when an institution or a source lets you down.  She is also honest about the perks of access to people in high places and the gratification of celebrity. And she is clear-eyed and passionate about the failures of journalism today and the hopes she places in young and aspiring journalists upon whom democracy depends.

This book is nearly 600 pages, but Hume’s chapters are short and her writing is lively. I tore though it in six days and enjoyed every moment.

Lowell Politics: June 29, 2025

The Lowell City Council met on Tuesday night. As is often the case with the summer schedule of just two meetings per month, the council did not get through the meeting agenda before its 10 pm deadline. Although the council can waive the 10 pm rule, doing so requires a roll call vote and if only two councilors object, then the meeting must end immediately. That’s what happened Tuesday night when Councilors Wayne Jenness and Kim Scott both objected, so the meeting ended with unresolved items.

Often last summer, the council did not waive the 10 pm deadline so it should not have come as a surprise that it happened again. However, this time before that vote was taken, Mayor Dan Rourke pleaded with his colleagues to allow him to take up a couple of items he said were “time sensitive.” Notwithstanding that request, the council opted not to go beyond 10 pm. When that happened, Rourke wordlessly walked off the chair while one or more councilors futilely moved to adjourn. But with no one then chairing the meeting, no more votes could be taken and the meeting just faded out.

Last summer, agenda items that were not reached due to time constraints were simply appended to the start of the next regularly scheduled meeting. That created cascading delays through the summer since the next agenda would never be any shorter than the one that wasn’t completed.

That will not be the case this time. A special meeting of the council has been scheduled for this Monday, June 30, 2025, at 5:30 pm. The agenda for this special meeting is lengthy so it makes sense to wrap it up Monday rather than condemn the next meeting to spilling over. Of course, that assumes the council will complete the full special meeting agenda before 10 pm. With this council, one never knows.

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The early part of Tuesday’s meeting was dominated by a presentation on the increased cost of the Lowell High School project. Earlier this year, contractors discovered that much of the dirt underneath the cement slab that formed the floor of the 1922 building (the yellow brick structure along Kirk Street) had either settled or washed away leaving voids that had to be filled before renovations could continue. This came as a surprise and was not included in the existing budget. Back on April 13, 2025, I wrote about that presentation. You can find more details about the construction issues and the history of the various buildings in that newsletter if you want a refresher.

This week the contractors informed councilors that the added cost of this unforeseen work would be $40 million. A detailed PowerPoint presentation (available online) broke down the costs as follows: $2.4 million for Skanska (the city’s project manager); $2.1 million for Perkins Eastman (the architect); $13.2 million for Suffolk (the general contractor); $6.0 million for subcontractors; and $1.3 million for increased insurance bond, all totaling $20.5 million. Then there is an additional $14.8 million for “construction contingency” for a total additional cost of $39,850,848.

This was just an informational session for councilors so they could ask questions of the parties who all had representatives present. As is typically the case in televised meetings, councilors mostly used it as a chance to chastise the contractors for this disappointing news and, for a few of the councilors who had supported the Cawley Stadium site option back in 2017, to say “I told you so.”  Mayor Rourke was particularly pointed in his remarks, saying the city was relying on our state house delegation, especially “our State Senator” (Ed Kennedy), to get proportional state funding for these added costs “since he is the one primarily responsible for this” by which Rourke meant the high school staying downtown and all the costs that have flowed from that.

Here’s some context: Talk of a new high school in Lowell began in 2014. Over the next two years, studies of possible sites identified two: the city-owned land around Cawley Stadium in the Belvidere neighborhood and the site of the existing high school in downtown which could be fully renovated and supplemented with some new construction.

After a bitter and divisive campaign between advocates of the two sites, in June 2017, the city council chose the Cawley Stadium option by a 5 to 4 vote. Voting for Cawley were Councilors Rita Mercier (still on the council), Rodney Elliott (now a state representative), Dan Rourke (still on the council), Corey Belanger (still on the council), and Jim Leary (out of politics). Voting for downtown were Ed Kennedy (now a state senator), John Leahy (now working for the school department), Bill Samaras (out of politics), and Jim Milinazzo (out of politics).

Notably, 2017 was a city election year. Some incumbents and a few challengers who supported Cawley believed that however controversial the decision may have been, the June vote would be old news come November, and the election would turn on other issues. They were mistaken. Instead, the city election became a referendum on the high school location.

It was literally a referendum because the November ballot contained this question: “The City of Lowell is reviewing several options for its high school project. Do you support extensive renovation and rebuild at the existing Lowell High School location, at 50 Father Morissette Boulevard, Lowell, MA 01852?” The YES votes won by a 61 percent to 39 percent margin (7,254 voted YES and 4,629 voted NO).

More importantly, the field of 18 council candidates was evenly split with nine supporting Cawley and nine supporting downtown. City voters elected seven pro-downtown incumbents and challengers and just two pro-Cawley councilors (Rita Mercier and Rodney Elliott). The three other incumbent councilors who voted for Cawley all lost. They were Dan Rourke (who returned to the council in 2019), Corey Belanger (who returned to the council last year when he was appointed to fill a vacancy), and Jim Leary.

Here are the results for all 18 candidates in that race:

1. Vesna Nuon – 7518 – challenger – Downtown
2. Edward Kennedy – 6483 – incumbent – Downtown
3. John Leahy – 6114 – incumbent – Downtown
4. Bill Samaras – 6094 – incumbent – Downtown
5. Rita Mercier – 5730 – incumbent – Cawley
6. Jim Millinazzo – 5688 – incumbent – Downtown
7. Rodney Elliott – 5447 – incumbent – Cawley
8. Dave Conway – 4974 – challenger – Downtown
9. Karen Cirillo – 4973 – challenger – Downtown
10. Sokhary Chau – 4756 – challenger – Cawley
11. Dan Rourke – 4729 – incumbent -Cawley
12. Cory Belanger – 4722 – incumbent – Cawley
13. Jim Leary – 4666 – incumbent – Cawley
14. Joe Boyle – 4170 – challenger – Downtown
15. Martin Hogan – 4082 – challenger – Downtown
16. Matt LeLacheur – 4055– challenger – Cawley
17. Dan Finn – 3920 – challenger – Cawley
18. Robert Gignac – 3524 – challenger – Cawley

As soon as the new council – which contained seven Downtown supporters to just two Cawley supporters – took office in January 2018, it reversed the high school location decision and voted to proceed with the downtown option. As they say, the rest is history.

The outcome of the 2017 city election, both in the referendum and the vote for city councilors, chose the downtown option. When current councilors who supported Cawley say, “I told you so,” they are really telling the electorate, “Don’t complain, you are the ones who wanted this.”

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The council also authorized the city to take by eminent domain the land and building at 40 Market Street which is currently owned by Align Credit Union and used for office space. This is the large brick building across Market Street from Brew’d Awaking Coffeehaus.

The council also voted to authorize the borrowing of $4.2 million to pay for this building. In response to questions from Councilors as to why this was an eminent domain taking rather than an outright sale of the property, Manager Golden explained that the city and Align Credit Union have been in talks about the purchase of the building for many months. They both agree to the transfer but are not entirely in agreement on the price. They mutually agreed that the cleanest way to make the transfer in these circumstances is through a taking. I got the impression that Align is not inclined to judicially challenge the amount to be paid which is based on an independent appraisal. Golden deemed it “a friendly taking.”

Golden further explained that the city’s Department of Planning and Development will move from its current home in the JFK Civic Center and occupy two-thirds of this building and that other city departments with smaller footprints will occupy the rest. Since some of those departments are currently leasing privately-owned space, the city will no longer be paying rent for those facilities. Also, with DPD vacating the Civic Center, the police department will expand into that space which Golden said will be a lot cheaper than building a new police station.

Constructed in 1837 jointly by the city of Lowell and Middlesex County, this building was historically known as “the old market building” because its first floor was intended as a public market in which local grocers could sell meat, butter, cheese, eggs and vegetables. The upper floors were to be used for the county courts (Superior Court and Supreme Judicial Court when it sat in Lowell) and the Lowell Police Court (the predecessor to today’s Lowell District Court). The concept of a centralized farmer’s market proved unpopular, which undercut the purpose of the building. By 1870, the first floor was shared by the various businesses and by the Lowell Police Department which remained there until 1973 and the construction of its current home in the JFK Civic Center. The building remained vacant until 1980 when the city sold it. The new owners rehabilitated it and it has been used as office space ever since.

Of historic note, the rear of the building which faces the Pawtucket Canal was also a “public landing.” Before extensive railroad networks, rivers and canals were the primary routes for moving people and materials from place to place. In the 1830s, a “public landing” was a place where anyone could tie up and load or unload their boat and move cargo or people ashore. Today, there is an excellent walkway that runs along that bank of the canal from Central Street to the far end of the Market Street parking garage. I’m not sure if the public landing is noted or identified but it should be. I’m also not sure if the walkway is currently open due to security or maintenance concerns. Hopefully when the city takes ownership of the building, these omissions will be rectified.

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Another item that took up a substantial amount of time during the council meeting was a request by the Markley Group LLC to amend its fuel storage license to allow four additional 6000-gallon diesel fuel tanks to supply four emergency generators.

The Markely Group is a leading provider of data center services and cloud computing solutions. Essentially, they build, operate and maintain highly secure and reliable data centers where other businesses can house their critical IT infrastructure, servers, and data. As the world becomes increasingly digital and data-driven, the demand for sophisticated data center services continues to grow, making companies like Markley indispensable to the modern economy.

Lowell is lucky to have Markley Group located here. The company purchased the former Prince Spaghetti manufacturing plant off Moore Street in 2015 and opened its new data center in early 2016. A critical service Markley provides its customer is continuity of computer operations which requires, among other things, layers of redundancy, hence the need for generators with their own fuel supply in case of electrical outages.

Shortly after the Markley facility opened, I went on a tour of the interior and found it very impressive with security measures that reminded me of those found at Top Secret facilities I had encountered while in the US Army. Although I wasn’t there to assess the external noise level, nothing stood out as excessively loud. Still, I don’t live next door to the place so don’t have first-hand knowledge of current noise levels. Nevertheless, the use of the site for industrial purposes goes back many decades so I doubt many of the residents pre-date that type of use.

At the council meeting, neighbors spoke in opposition to Markley’s request, however, their entreaties were offset by dozens of Markley employees who are also Lowell residents (and voters) who urged the council to ratify the request.

In the end, the council voted by a 9 to 1 margin to approve the Markley measure. (Councilor Kim Scott, who represents the district in which the Markley facility is located, voted NO and Councilor Vesna Nuon was absent from the meeting).

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This week on richardhowe.com:

Leo Racicot shared his memories of local TV programs in the 1960s.

Louise Peloquin translated a 1925 article from L’Etoile that called on Lowell residents of French-Canadian descent to take pride in their ethnic heritage.