A recent Lowell Sun article about the coming rehabilitation of the former Royal Theater building at 484 Merrimack Street recalled a passage from Legends of Little Canada, a memoir by Charlie Gargiulo about growing up in that neighborhood just before and as it succumbed to the Urban Renewal wrecking ball.

Here’s what Charlie wrote:

Finally, the day we all dreaded was one day away. It was Saturday, the day before Ronnie and his family would be forced to leave Little Canada. His parents let him spend his last day with us instead of packing up. We had more fun than any day I remembered. We spent the morning playing Roleevo and punch ball, and then me, Richie, Dave, Dicky, Henry, and Frenchie headed to the Royal Theatre, a real movie theatre that was somehow located inside a large four-story wooden tenement building. The Royal was on Merrimack Street, close to the new Harvey’s. It was still in the neighborhood, before Merrimack Street came to City Hall and downtown, just a few buildings down past the tiny Western Canal and Hanover Street.

     The cheapest of the four movie theatres in Lowell, the Royal was also the crappiest, which we liked. It usually showed the lowest of lousy low-budget films, the kind of movies which were so bad even the mothers of the film’s director and actors disowned them. But everything was super cheap, including the popcorn and Coke. The torn seats were duct-taped over the rips, the floors had sticky crap that made you feel like you were stepping on flypaper. Most of the lights were burned out. The inside, smaller than the Keith or Strand, had a balcony. The place smelled like Captain Jack, without the alcohol. Nothing made it cooler than its mascots. The Royal was a actual rat hole. With live rats. One of our favorite thrills was spotting a giant rat scurrying under the seats. Every time one did the whole place erupted in laughter. It didn’t matter what movie was on because the real show was the stuff you could get away with in that dump. Food fights were popular, but it was a little rougher than the Keith theater, which kept most girls away. Plunking girls on the back of their heads with candy got replaced by dumping drinks on younger kids’ heads. The thing that made the Royal special was the popcorn in thin flat cardboard boxes that you folded into a rectangular box for the popcorn. After eating the popcorn, the box became a weapon. Unfolded and flat with sharp edges, the box flew through the air. You could throw sidearm fastballs and even make them curve or dip. Every weekend matinee with kids ruling the seats was spent throwing and ducking deadly popcorn-boxes.

     On this last day with Ronnie and the gang, it turned out to be the greatest moment in Royal Movie Theatre history. It probably ranks as one of the top ten moments in my life.  The theatre was really crowded that day and stuff was flying. For whatever reason, kids were really getting under each other’s skin, and it felt like a serious brawl might break out. Then, almost as if we were actually in a movie ourselves, I whipped my popcorn box with all my might from the balcony towards the movie screen and the box not only hit the screen, it hit it just right, and literally cut through it and stabbed the close-up character of a man right in his big movie eyeball. The box stayed stabbed in his eye because the film camera never moved off the same close up of the guy. It took a couple of seconds to register, because when it happened there was silence, and then the whole place went hysterical. Kids who was ready to kill each other a few seconds ago were doing belly laughs, looking at each other smiling, slapping each other on the back, shaking hands, and for that one great moment Irish, Greek and French-Canadian mortal enemies turned into comrades in arms. The rest of the day was filled with happiness and brotherhood and we left the Royal nodding in respect towards each other and flipping thumbs-up signs. And the best part was Ronnie got to be there with us when it happened.

     When we got out it was dark already. Me, Richie, Dicky, and Ronnie walked all the other kids home and then we went over to Richie’s house to hang out until about eight. I found out that even Richie’s dumb sisters had a spark of decency in them because they held back being jerks for a night, out of respect for the fact that Ronnie was leaving the next day. Believe it or not, they looked the tiniest bit sad that he was going. Even Richie’s dad, the Collector, came by to wish him well, which was something because Richie’s dad hardly said a word to any of us.

     We talked about staying in touch and writing letters, but we all knew that was not going to happen. Guys like us just don’t write letters, no matter how much we want to stay in touch, and, like me, half the other kids didn’t have phones. At eight, we said bye to Richie, and then Ronnie and I walked Dicky back home and headed back together to Ronnie’s place on Cheever Street. We shook hands, and I told him how much I’d miss him.

     Then he surprised me and said, “I never told you this, but you are my best friend. I love all the guys in the gang, but I don’t know, I just know for some reason I’m going to miss you the most.”

     Then as soon as it started to feel a little awkward because I didn’t know what to say, Ronnie got cheerful again and said, “So, we’ll be leaving at about nine tomorrow morning. Maybe we can get a chance to say goodbye then if you want to drop by.” I said I’d definitely be there and then I took off back home just in time to see my mom head off to work.

The next morning, everybody in the gang including the hopscotch girls showed up at Ronnie’s. They must have all gone to the early Mass to be there at nine. Everyone took a turn saying goodbye, and then we watched a moving truck leave followed by a car with Ronnie and his parents in it. Wouldn’t you know it, it was the same damn model of 1960 Black Pontiac Bonneville I saw my dad drive away in when he left last March.

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The Sun article, “The Acre’s former Royal Theater reborn,” reported that Lowell’s Community Preservation Committee recommended that $200,000 in CPA funds be allocated to this project, which will transform the four-story former rooming house that was in front of the theater (the theater part was demolished long ago) into 17 units of market-rate housing plus a retail space on the ground floor which is expected to be filled by Sophia’s Greek Pantry which is now a block away on Market Street.

Legends of Little Canada: Aunt Rose, Harvey’s Bookland and My Captain Jack is a widely acclaimed coming of age story that captures the sounds, sights and feel of Lowell’s Little Canada neighborhood which was demolished in the early 1960s in an Urban Renewal project. The book is available locally at lala books and online from Loom Press.

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Here’s the ad for the Royal Theatre referenced in the comment by Louise Peloquin: