Author Archive

Another summer gap for Lowell City Council meetings so let’s revisit Lowell political history this week. Not long ago while researching Civil Rights lawsuit brought against Lowell for segregation and unequal treatment of minority students in the public schools in the mid-1980s, I was struck by how many other things…

David Daniel offers this story in honor of the anniversary of the July 20, 1969 Moon Landing. Hasselblads on the Moon By David Daniel In a bar last night, dude I know says: You want a pristine Hasselblad camera? You can have it for free. Okay, wise guy, I say.…

Living Madly: Enchanted Dawn By Emilie-Noelle Provost For most of my life, I didn’t consider myself a morning person. Getting up before seven o’clock always felt like work, a sentiment that was reinforced when my daughter was a toddler. She refused to sleep later than five a.m. no matter what…

Olympic happy hour ahead! Seine River water for sale at 10 euros a bottle By Louise Peloquin      On July 9th, “The last lap” covered a major player in the upcoming Summer Olympics – La Seine, the venue to host the sure-to-be-spectacular opening ceremonies. Readers can find it on this…

Tuesday night the Lowell City Council discussed how to fill a vacancy on the council. The precipitating cause was the coming resignation of John Leahy, something reported by the Lowell Sun last Sunday and confirmed by Leahy during this meeting. He said he would begin his new job with the Lowell School…

Allen Ginsberg in Lowell By Leo Racicot      A sad irony — the first time Allen Ginsberg came to Lowell, it was to help bury his beloved friend, Jack Kerouac. The two met in 1944 at Columbia University when they were students there. They hit it off instantly, traveled…

The Celtics Game 5 Renews Ties Between Alaskans and New Englanders By Mike McCormick The Boston Celtics were back on their home court at TD Garden for the fifth game of the NBA Championship series. The seventeen-time champions, up three games to one in the series, could hoist an eighteenth…

“The last lap – Paris’s Summer Olympics” By Louise Peloquin      The river Seine has fashioned Paris history since its name was “Lutèce” (1), begun as a small settlement on “L’Isle de la Cité”, one of its two islands. Even today, everyone still refers to its lively Left Bank where thrones the…

With no City Council meeting last week, today we’ll take another excursion into a part of Lowell political history that intersects with several contemporary issues. In May the City Council held a vigorous debate on whether to unwind the judicial consent decree from the 1980s that still governs the assignment…

In the years before the American Civil War, Frederick Douglass was a frequent visitor to Lowell. Although the city’s entire reason for existence was the production of cloth made from cotton harvested by enslaved Africans in the American south which provided a strong incentive for those in Lowell to remain…