To help commemorate Lowell’s bicentennial, I’ve written a new book. Lowell: A Concise History tells the city’s story from the arrival of the first English explorers in the early 1600s up to the present day with a focus on immigration and industrialization. It’s a short volume for the casual reader but it also includes data about the city’s geography, population growth, forms of government and much else.

A print copy of the book may be purchased from Lulu Press, a print on demand company, at this link.

You may also download a full PDF version of the book for free at this link.

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The highlight of the Lowell City Council meeting of Tuesday, February 10, 2026, was City Manager Tom Golden’s “2025 in Review” presentation. The core of that was a 12-minute video that was well-produced with narration by a cohort of city department heads.

The opening line, from Chief Financial Officer Conor Baldwin, was “Good financial management is the cornerstone of effective government.” He then cited the highest bond rating and the biggest stabilization fund balance in decades as evidence of the city’s fiscal strength.

Moving on, the video observed that 2025 saw the full impact of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), the Biden-era federal initiative that poured billions of dollars into American communities to help recover from the Covid pandemic. Lowell received more than $76 million in ARPA funding with $10 million spent on replacing the entire Lowell Fire Department fleet with all-new vehicles and nearly $1 million that was spent on festivals and support to small businesses. Millions more were committed to upgrading nearly a dozen city parks, and many expensive infrastructure and building repair tasks were also financed by ARPA.

In all, the city spent $23 million – not all ARPA funds – on infrastructure improvements, mostly in the form of street and sidewalk repaving. Also, with funding support from the Massachusetts School Building Authority, the city has undertaken eleven renovation projects at seven schools, mostly for HVAC and accessibility improvements.

The presentation then cited the importance of education: “As we look ahead, we’re aligning our education and workforce strategies with the future of our economy. Through our partnership with UMass Lowell, Middlesex Community College, and the Lowell Public Schools, we are building a pipeline from pre-K to Ph.D., one that connects students to opportunities in biotech, robotics, clean energy, and advanced manufacturing. This is how we prepare our residents not just for jobs, but for careers that will define the next generation of Lowell’s growth.”

In the economic development review, the highlight was the many new projects and housing developments underway in the city. Then there was this: “Perhaps no area saw more transformation than the Hamilton Canal Innovation District. Thanks to the tireless work of DPD and with the full support of the city council, we successfully renegotiated a development agreement in the HCID.” I take this as a reference to the Lupoli project although I’m not sure the verbiage used in this video accurately captures what really happened. For instance, here’s what I wrote about that “transformation” in my own Year in Review article last month:

“Hamilton Canal Innovation District – In March, the city council enacted a controversial amendment to a Land Disposition Agreement relative to the use of several HCID lots between the city and the Lupoli Companies. Originally, the Lupoli Companies had promised to construct a 12 to 14-story mixed-use building; a second building of 50,000 square feet on an adjacent lot; and a privately owned parking lot on a third parcel. However, in 2024, the Lupoli Companies returned to the council to request permission to scale back the high rise building to a smaller, wood frame residential apartment building. Although most of the discussion took place in executive session, enough was said in public to know several councilors opposed the requested modification and preferred declaring a default in performance. However, the city administration and most councilors concluded that the modified deal was the best the city could get so the council endorsed the amended plan.”

The video concluded with a mention of the global recognition granted to Lowell with its designation as a Front Runner city and closed with this: “Partnering with our nonprofit sector, our universities, and our residents, we will build a more resilient, inclusive, and sustainable Lowell. One that will serve as a model for cities across the country and across the world.”

Unless I missed it, there was no direct mention of the Lowell Innovation Network Corridor (LINC) project. That’s primarily a UMass Lowell initiative but it is also a partnership with many private sector entities, the Commonwealth, and the city. This video’s embrace of the city’s educational opportunities as a way of preparing the youth of Lowell for the jobs of tomorrow is terrific, but those bright, well-educated young people will go where the jobs are. If they are not in Lowell, they will move elsewhere. When it comes to a coherent strategy on how to create those jobs within the city limits, LINC seems to be the only game in town. That it was not mentioned in this presentation is baffling.

The presentation is available for viewing on the city’s YouTube channel at this link.

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I was amused by a recent Lowell Sun story by Melanie Gilbert that appeared on February 9, 2026. The headline, “Lowell tops state’s list of approved ADUs: 26 units approved in 2025; city ranks 4th in Mass,” says it all. (The top three communities were Plymouth, Lawrence and Nantucket.)

Recall that beginning in 2022, the Lowell City Council engaged in a multi-year legislative process regarding accessory dwelling units (ADUs) that moved from an initial embrace as an innovative way to address the high cost and inadequate amount of housing in the city, to a contentious rejection of a proposed local ordinance after politically powerful constituencies in the city condemned ADUs as a threat to the “character” of the city’s single family neighborhoods. Shortly after that a new state law that allowed ADUs as a matter of right superseded the city’s decision.

But for this Sun story, I would have guessed that not a single ADU had been built in Lowell since our neighborhoods have yet to descend into the chaos many predicted would result if ADUs were allowed in the city.

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In this week’s Seen & Heard column, I reviewed the Winter Olympics and the Super Bowl and promised to explain the “Lowell connection” to Bad Bunny’s halftime performance. Here is the story of Charles Herbert Allen.

Throughout the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, Puerto Rico and Cuba were Spanish colonies. However, by the late 1800s, the once-mighty Spanish Empire was disintegrating. Longtime residents of both islands were increasing their efforts to gain independence, often through armed conflict.

At the time, sugar was a lucrative crop in both locations, dominated largely by American companies. These business leaders viewed the burgeoning independence movements as both a threat to their investments and an opportunity to shed the remaining colonial control exercised by Spain. Because the McKinley Administration was deeply committed to advancing the interests of “Big Business,” it took up the cause of Cuban independence—though many historians argue this was a pretense for pursuing economic objectives.

When the US battleship Maine exploded and sank in Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898, the United States blamed Spain without evidence and invaded both Cuba and Puerto Rico. The war lasted only 90 days. Under the Treaty of Paris, signed on December 10, 1898:

• Spain relinquished all claims to Cuba, which became a US protectorate.
• Spain ceded Guam and Puerto Rico to the US, making them US territories.
• Sovereignty of the Philippines was transferred to the United States.

Charles Allen of Lowell, Massachusetts, was appointed the first US civil governor of Puerto Rico. Born in Lowell in 1848, Allen was the son of a lumber magnate whose company was in the lower Highlands, near the Pawtucket Canal and Clemente Park. After a stint in the family business, Allen entered politics, serving on the Lowell School Committee before becoming a state representative, a state senator, and eventually a US Congressman in 1885.

When William McKinley assumed the presidency, he selected another Massachusetts Congressman, John Long, as Secretary of the Navy. Theodore Roosevelt was chosen as Assistant Secretary. However, after the Maine exploded, Roosevelt impetuously issued orders to the US Pacific Fleet without coordinating with Long or the President. He was quietly eased out of the role and formed the “Rough Riders” volunteer regiment, eventually winning fame at the Battle of San Juan Hill.

Seeking a more cooperative replacement, Long selected his former colleague, Charles Allen, despite Allen having no naval or nautical experience. As soon as the war ended, President McKinley appointed Allen to the Puerto Rican post.

As governor of Puerto Rico, Allen raised taxes on residents and froze funding for schools and public buildings. He diverted those funds to US companies to improve the island’s railroads and port facilities, making it cheaper for American sugar producers to export their goods.

After one year, Allen resigned and moved to New York to become president of the American Sugar Refining Company, which eventually controlled more than 90% of sugar processing in the US. Today, we know that company as Domino Sugar.

Allen eventually retired to Lowell, where he purchased a stately brick house overlooking the Merrimack River. He spent his final years painting landscapes and still lifes. His home is now part of the UMass Lowell South Campus; still known as The Allen House, it features several of his paintings on display. Allen died in 1934 and is buried in Lowell Cemetery.

In her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Cuba: An American History (2021), Ada Ferrer documents how US sugar companies forced farmers to devote their land almost exclusively to sugar. The same thing occurred in Puerto Rico. This deprived both islands of a diversified agricultural sector that could have generated more local wealth. The economic consequences of this monoculture are still felt in the poverty experienced on the islands today.

So, when Bad Bunny began his performance with a rhythmic walk through a sugarcane field, my mind went immediately to Charles Allen of Lowell and the enduring influence he left on Puerto Rico.