Richard Howe | Lowell: Downtown & Around

Lowell: Downtown & Around

December 11, 2025 by DickH Posted in Uncategorized Leave a Comment

Lowell: Downtown & Around

By Leo Racicot

During my growing up years, downtown Lowell was the epicenter of social life for residents. A thriving, even at times bustling area, especially on weekends and at the holidays but actually most any day of the year, shoppers could be found teeming Merrimack Street. Sundays, Lowellians would browse its window displays. This window shopping was about the only thing people could do, after church services; state Blue Laws forbade stores, bars and restaurants from doing business on Sundays. To young people now, the very idea that we amused ourselves by walking from storefront to storefront and merely looking causes them to groan and roll their eyes. Our own walks usually began at the corner of Merrimack and John Streets where Fanny Farmer Candy Shop was located. Even when closed, the shop wafted of good chocolate and became a favorite place to linger. We then crossed over to Cherry and Webb Company on the opposite corner, a deluxe department store whose window dressers always did the store up splendidly. On weekdays, when it was open, Marie always took Diane and me up to the third floor to say “hello” to her chum, Mrs. Backus, a pert lady who was always “just so” in her wrinkle free skirts and blouses, her spangled wrists, cameo pins at the throat. I liked Mrs. Backus; she always scented herself with Jeanne Lanvin perfume and seemed always happy to see Diane and me. After having a visit with her, Marie would cross us over to J.M. Fields, a store I found too boring to pay much attention to. It was on the corner of Merrimack and Central Streets in the old Boothe Building. After Fields went out-of-business, the store became H.L. Green’s which I loved. It seemed to carry everything anyone could want: clothes, home furnishings, toys, toys, toys. It even had a big downstairs. The store had no elevators so customers had to walk down a large marble staircase. One time, my mother was walking us down when, at the bottom of the stairs, we were stopped by a very old lady who seemed thrilled to see me and kept telling my mother what a good boy I was, smart, “so smart”. I had no idea who she was and rudely said so. Her intrusion was keeping me from getting over to the toy section. I wasn’t nice. Later, my mother explained to me that the lady was my kindergarten teacher at The Morrill School, Miss Stanley. To this day, whenever this meeting at Green’s crosses my mind, I feel so ashamed that I hadn’t remembered Miss Stanley, whom I’d like so much when she was my teacher.

On downtown excursions, we tried hitting all the different stores but, in those days, there were so many of them, we didn’t have the time. We liked walking further up Merrimack Street on the same side as Green’s and our mother would stop in at The Dutch Tea Room where she’d treat us to a grilled cheese sandwich, a chocolate frappe. When I was a teen in high school, I got a job there washing dishes in the kitchen. I think I lasted a day before deciding, “the heck with this!” and quit. Joe remembers I worked there for only a day, I think it was longer than that but not much longer. I liked the wall murals, of little Dutch boys and girls in their Dutch wooden shoes, the sweeping mosaic floor designs. For a long time after the restaurant went under, the new owners left a portion of that floor untouched, near the front door. When passing by, Joe and I used to stop to inspect it, take a photo of it, though we think it must be gone now…

Up a couple of doors was Pollard’s Department Store. It was part of a larger complex of buildings that had once housed a Lowell dry goods store, and covered the area between Middle and Palmer Streets. Next to it was Prince’s, both of whose main entrances were on Merrimack Street. The fun of these two stores was that you could cut through them to a back exit, cross through a dark, somewhat spooky alley and find yourself in a second Pollard’s, a second Prince’s. These, for me, were the more interesting stores, much more interesting that their “parent” Daddy stores I’d just come out of. I was more likely to look around longer, actually buy something in those stores. Prince’s sold art supplies: paints, easels, brushes, paint-by-number kits, fancy pens, pencils, notebooks, typewriters, carbon paper (do today’s young people know what carbon paper is??) Some stores leave you with a good feeling, just by being in them. Prince’s was one of those stores for me.

On Palmer Street was Palmer’s Restaurant, a popular stop for shoppers wanting a pick-me-up between stores. Palmer’s offered traditional American fare: hamburgers with fries, frappes, ice cream sodas, and had a relaxed atmosphere. Further up, at the corner of Merrimack and Shattuck Streets was The B.C. (Boston Confectionary), one of the three Lowell homemade candy stores at that time (the other two being Dana’s on Gorham Street and Blue Dot, on Bridge. The B.C. actually had a dining counter with stools and dining booths, also a place where travelers could rest their weary feet. Somewhere in this area was Liggett’s Drugstore where Linda Scanlon worked as a fountain girl during her high school years. Crossing to the other side of Merrimack, you found The Bon Marche Department Store (which later became a satellite of Jordan Marsh), an always bustling place, no matter the time of year but especially at Christmastime when it would go all-out with decorations and dazzling window displays.

A few doors down was J.M. Fields, next to Cherry and Webb. I thought of it as being in the same vein as Green’s, offering a variety of products, though less upscale than Bon Marche’s or Pollards. Woolworth’s and Kresge’s could be found next to each other in the next block. They were fun places for a kid to explore. Each sold live goldfish. If you bought one, the clerk would put it in a plastic bag with water. You had to be extra careful carrying that home. Joe told me about the time the clerk put his fish in a cardboard carton. The fish of course had died by the time he got it home. We loved Woolworth’s counter fountain. A few times a year, the store would string colored balloons above the top of the counter, each balloon containing a slip of paper with a price written on it. Customers got to pick a balloon and pop it. The price that fell out was the amount you’d pay for an ice cream sundae. One time, Joe won a banana split for a penny.

The stores, in those days really lived up to their advertising as “Five-and-dimes”; many of the items sold could be had for a dime or not too much more. I’m aghast when I see what’s being charged for items that cost mere pennies in my day. In 2025, the sale tag reading “2 for 9 dollars” is considered a steal. This takes my mind to Record Lane. In the ’60s and ’70s, you could buy a newly-released LP for as little as 50 cents. I don’t know what to make of the prices of “vinyl” nowadays. Only recently, I saw George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass double album going for 75 dollars. I bought it for $2.50 at Boston’s Jordan Marsh when it first came out in 1970. I still had money left over for one of Jordan’s scrumptious blueberry muffins.

Record Lane was on Central Street, a street where there was always lots to do; The Bell Shop, The Deb Shop, The Children’s Shop (where our mother liked to bring Diane to look at pretty clothes), Martin’s Department Store was across the street from those. I hated having to buy clothes made for heavy kids. I was on the pudgy side and had to be taken to the husky section of the store where giant black letters on the wall read HUSKY. Oh, the shame. But I remember the fitter, a very nice guy, with jet black hair, combed back (the wet look) and a pock-marked face who always took his time with me, going out of his way to make me feel less self-conscious. The only colors they stocked for stocky kids were blacks, greys and dark blues. Supposedly, these were “slimming” colors. I always wound up looking like I was going to a funeral. I did look forward to being waited on by Jerry. Also, on Central Street were the department stores, Lemkins and Harry Bass. I never went in either but Marie bought a lot of her clothes at Harry Bass and used to sing that stores’ praises to the rafters.

A favorite restaurant our mother always took us to was The Epicure which struck me as being fancier than all other downtown restaurants. Inside, above the main door, it read: “Through these portals pass some of the most beautiful girls in the world”. That made me think of The Ziegfeld Follies showgirls I’d recently seen in the movie, Funny Girl.

A good time could always be had at Harvey’s Bookland, located a couple of doors up from Record Lane. Harvey’s was a treasure chest of used books (hard and paperback), comic books, vintage newspapers and magazines. The place was sort of a jumbled mess but that was half the fun of it. God forbid anyone had ever thrown a match in there. Anthony Kalil and I would come out with arms full of goodies which we’d then take home to scour through.

Some out-of-the-way or out-of-town stores were available whenever Marie got tired of walking the downtown. These had to be driven to. Let’s see…there was Mammoth Mart out on Plain Street. It’s parent company, King’s, was located in the Boott Mills just beyond John Street. K-Mart, also a popular stop-off was located in Stadium Plaza on Route 38, on the Tewksbury Line. I also remember Grant’s, Ames, Bradlees. Marie would hit a couple of these stores and they’d make up our Sunday fun.

With the appearance of the suburban mall, everyone was eager to experience this new form of cultural amusement, Aunt Marie included. Of course, malls, with their many connecting stores and eateries (one mall even boasted a multi-screen cinema) signaled a mass exodus of shoppers from urban life. Not many people wanted to stick to the downtown they’d always known, abandoning it for a trip out-of-town to these slick new centers of the modern age. In fact, to this day, many cities haven’t rebounded from the decline and fall they experienced with the coming of the malls. It saddens me to say it but downtown Lowell these days looks like a war zone and has for many years. In the mid-1970s, Lowell native, Paul Tsongas, revitalized a dying Lowell when, as a U.S. Congressman, he championed the idea of the government granting Lowell National Historical Park status. Paul’s was a quietly dynamic voice and his idea passed handily in Congress. It succeeded in making Lowell a better place to live, if only for a while. Paul’s bid in 1992 for president failed; his measured, low-key manner was no match for the more effusive Bill Clinton. I would like to have seen Paul as president. He was a man of principles, innately decent. I remember he came to Lowell High to speak to our class about us considering signing up with The Peace Corps, with whom he had served as a young man. He had me so fired up, I dreamed for a time of applying but knew in my heart, it wasn’t possible for me to leave my ailing mother. I’ve learned, too, that it’s much better to have goals, not dreams. I forget who said it. Dreamers dream; they do not do.

But what’s this got to do with malls?? Marie’s favorites were Pheasant Lane Mall on the Lowell/Tyngsboro line, Billerica Mall, Nashua Mall. My favorite was Northshore Shopping Center (Peabody Mall) which, in those days, was an outdoor mall; its stores not yet enclosed in a building, as they are now. I got such a kick out of that. I have a clear memory of seeing a giant Easter Bunny walking the parking lot, handing out candy from a giant Easter basket. Or the tin soldiers from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker lining the same lot. A child’s delight.

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