A Walking Tour of Lowell’s Acre, Then and Now

April 30, 2026 by DickH Posted in Uncategorized 1 Comment

A Walking Tour of Lowell’s Acre, Then and Now

By Leo Racicot

The Lowell Acre neighborhood streets I walked as a boy are much changed as I walk them now. True, the look of the landscape is pretty much the same –when I stand in my yard or go out the front gate, walk across Fletcher Street, I still see the cathedral-like spire of Saint Patrick’s, my parish church and have a clear view of Saint Patrick’s School which, in those days, was hidden in the shadow of The Morrill School (torn down many years ago). Over to my right is The Marine Club, with its front yard stone statue of a World War I doughboy. In the 1990s, it became Lowell Firefighters’ Club with its hard-to-miss mural depiction of firemen battling a raging blaze. The doughboy remains at its entrance which is nice, I think. That hasn’t changed. Catty-corner from the club was Pappas Funeral home. Pappas was owned and operated by the Zaroulis family, by Eunice Zaroulis and her mother, Gloria. A prominent Greek family, the Zaroulis’ catered mostly to a Greek clientele (when I was a kid, many Acre residents were Greek immigrants and I was blessed to have/know a great many Greek kids and their families as friends). Having a funeral home a couple of houses away from ours, seeing the funerals, the attendees, the pall bearers, the hearses, the limos on such a regular basis, exposed me to the matter of death and dying, and informed my views, I’m sure, about these matters from a very young age. Eunice was always stylishly coiffed, stylishly dressed so that I associated death with a certain glamour. I remember thinking, “It (death) can’t be all bad.” Pappas’ was torn down years ago. In its place, a plaza devoted to Southeast Asian businesses (shops, laundromats and restaurants) was constructed. I can still look over and see the plaza here from my second-story kitchen window, and it’s always wildly busy, cars and customers coming-and-going constantly, trying carefully to maneuver through its tiny parking lot. I think of it and its takeover of the corner of Cross and Willie streets as symbolic of one race of immigrants making way for the next. In place of the Betses, Lellos, Tournas Zaharakis & Krikoris families I ran into every day, there are Luu, Hoa and Naly families. These days, of the old crowd, I only run into George Bletsis at the market. Along with his late brother, Christos, he ran Star Pizza on Merrimack Street for years, a favorite hangout in those days. Continuing on across Broadway Street, I see a succession of what were known as Greek coffeehouses, social meeting-places where men (no women or children were allowed inside) could gather, to drink coffee, gossip, talk politics and enjoy one another’s camaraderie. Being as restricted as they were lent a mystery to them and I used to wish I was Greek and grown-up so I could go inside their smoky interiors. By the end of the1970s, certainly by the early 1980s, these significantly important social outlets for the city’s Greek community and economy, had vanished. In their place, I now see a barber shop, an Hispanic eatery, PIkalu’s. George the Tailor’s, owned by our neighbors; Bill and Anna Krikoris’ brother for years and years, is now the site of an upscale modern sign design operation. From my childhood, only Anton’s Cleaners and Olympos Bakery remain on this street. I can’t find anyone who remembers, as I do, that before George’s Pizza moved to the corner of Broadway and Willie Streets, it was located further up Broadway at the corner of Broadway and School. I’m sure I didn’t imagine it; my mother used to walk Diane and me up regularly to treat us to a pizza or spaghetti lunch or supper. It was there I first heard Barbra Streisand singing People on the jukebox. George’s, at both locations, was a popular eating place for Acre residents and when it closed its doors and was demolished, many Acre-ites were devastated. Who can forget Eddie, the cook, or Dot and Irene, its longtime waitresses? Where it stood, across from Anton’s, is now occupied by an Asian Restaurant and Bakery, not bad food but certainly not George’s steak-and-cheese or its unforgettable spaghetti with pepperoni. A little way up from George’s stood the odd architecture of Cote’s Paint Store where our next-door neighbor, Clem Brissette, worked for years. That staple of the Acre closed and was taken over by, first, a bookstore, then a second-hand thrift store. When I was a kid, I hung around with the Brissette kids, Vivian, Diane, Denise and Michael, and one of the images I never can shake is of the day Anna Krikoris and I were chatting with their mom, Rita Brissette in the driveway that separated 5 from 7 Willie. As if out-of-nowhere, Rita’s face turned deep blue and she dropped to the ground, dead in a split second. On the spot where Cote’s Paint Store stood is now an abandoned, weed-heavy lot. Wending my way up Broadway Street, I come to Macheras Auto Body Shop. Lowell fixture, George Macheras, is long gone but his shop still stands, maintained by the Macheras family. From there, the road then bends onto Dummer Street, a street we spent a lot of time on as kids. On Dummer, the original DeMoulas Market stood, a small place but in those days, it seemed big and carried all the goods our family needed. It closed in 1997 when a new, larger store opened up on the corner of Broadway and Fletcher, to accommodate bigger crowds. The new store, under the name Market Basket was built on the site of a Gulf Gas Station (or was it a Mobil?). My one memory of that gas station is of the time I pulled up to one of the pumps to make sure I had enough gas to get to Worcester; I was on my way to see Truman Capote who was appearing at Worcester State College. Diane had very generously said I could borrow her car. I was so excited. But after I filled her tank, I got back in the car and it wouldn’t start. A station attendant checked it and said the battery had died. Bummer. I was crestfallen for weeks after; Capote being one of my favorite writers. Also, on Dummer Street was McCord’s Drugstore, close enough so that any of us could walk there when a medical emergency required a prescription pickup, Alka Seltzer, cough drops, Pepto Bismol. It later changed its name to McCord-Sweeney. Marie’s Oyster House was on Dummer. Our mother often took Diane and me there, either to eat or for take home. I’ve never since tasted a fish batter that so ambrosial, and you’ll still hear Lowell residents on buses or on street corners talking about how wonderful Marie’s was. Going to this area, I’d often take a shortcut leading from Saint Patrick’s Church past the Greek Orthodox Church through O’Brien Terrace over to Dummer. Then, the Greek Church gated its property to create more parking space so — no more shortcut. I still grouse about having to “go around”, especially in bad weather. Dummer Street led to Lower Merrimack where a stop-off at Pollard Memorial Library was always a treat. On the way home from high school, Anthony Kalil and I would head into Elias Bros. Tobacco Shop; In addition to cigars, cigarettes and pipes, the brothers sold quite a variety of sweets: penny candies, candy bars. I can still see the brothers’ kind Middle Eastern faces. Good people. Further up from there was The Royal Theater which, by that time, had seen better days. I went there only once, to see WIlliam Castle’s The Tingler with the great Vincent Price. The rumor was that The Royal was home to something like a million rats. For The Tingler, Castle had come up with a gimmick (he was known for inventing these) whereby when the creature, the tingler, appeared on the screen, theater seats were rigged to give the audience members a sudden jolt. When my seat buzzed, closer to my leg than to my rear end, I thought a rat had rushed over my foot and I screamed louder than anybody. I ask you — how do you forget something like that?!! Further up the street was Henry Poirier’s Hobby Shop where we kids bought chemistry sets, monster models like Frankenstein and The Mummy and ship-building and kite-making kits. I still have in the attic the cool Viking boat I put together from Poirier’s for Mrs. Dalton’s fifth grade history project.

The Acre of today is populated by a large group of Southeast Asian residents. The streets I walked so often — Butterfield, Varney, Adams, Cross, Rock, Rockdale Avenue, are now heavily decorated by typical ivy- and vine-covered canopies. It’s a common sight, when passing by, to glance into people’s driveways, alleys and enclaves and see Southeast Asian gardens, little Buddhas, incense sticks. I find the many thatched or timbered louvers dotting the Lowell landscape, protectors against rain and shade, a delight. There’s a certain area at the end of Suffolk Street leading to Dutton where, in summer, I see and smell orchids, bromeliads, Rangoon creepers, catalpa, Hoya, Rafflesia and ginger in bloom. I imagine I am walking in Laos or Vietnam.

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