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The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial is on the northwest side of the Tidal Basin, across the water from the Jefferson Memorial. The site is to the south of the National Mall, about even with the Vietnam Memorial. The memorial is simple, dignified, and inspirational. Its main components are three large…
Read More »Hidden in Plain Sight: Stories of Black Lowell is a collection of interviews of 27 Black people who have lived or worked in Lowell over the past few decades. Produced by Free Soil Arts Collective, the book is superbly designed and is illustrated with vibrant photos of the speakers. The…
Read More »Virtual Schwarzenegger By David Daniel Every January my wife tells me I spend more time writing my list of New Year’s resolutions than I do keeping them. But not this year. 2022 is gonna be different. Okay, some resolutions I’ll probably fail with. Watch TV less, read more. Cut back…
Read More »It’s a new year. There’s a new Lowell City Council. And I’m trying a new thing, a weekly newsletter on Lowell politics. Some background: The richardhowe.com blog was born 15 years ago. Its mission was to cover “Lowell politics and history” which we did with thoroughness and regularity. But by…
Read More »Please welcome our newest contributor, Nick Cote. Cape Cod By Nick Cote If you are anything like me, born and raised in Massachusetts, you know that Cape Cod is a special place. Not too far from home yet far enough to be the perfect and tranquil vacation destination. Dennis Port…
Read More »The Bridge Gregory F. DeLaurier Early December and the trees in the forest had lost their leaves. Walking through it was like being in a cemetery, or among some ancient obelisks a lost people had erected eons ago, with a strange sadness over what once had been green, fully alive.…
Read More »Boarding School Blues: Chapter 27 By Louise Peloquin Ch. 27: Friends The day after Thanksgiving, Blanche spent the afternoon at her friend Cecile’s house. Maman was taking the siblings to Woolworth’s to renew the stock of school supplies and had promised a stop at the soda fountain if behavior warranted…
Read More »The Poetry of Mapmaking: Retracing Maps of Northern Maine and Elsewhere By Christine O’Connor Detail from Phillips’ Map of the ‘Moosehead – Allagash Region of Northern Maine’ (1978) This past summer I visited Harding’s Bookstore in Wells, Maine. It was the first time since the start of the pandemic.…
Read More »A Lowell-centric view of the year just completed: Pandemic The Covid-19 pandemic was the biggest story of 2021, both globally and locally. In March, the number of Americans who had died of Covid topped 500,000. By December, more than 800,000, including one of every 100 people over the age of…
Read More »This was originally posted on this site on December 31, 2010. Plaque erected in Quebec City marking the spot of American General Richard Montgomery’s death. “Here stood the Undaunted Fifty safeguarding Canada, defeating Montgomery at the Pres de Ville Barricade on the last day of 1775, Guy Carleton commanding at…
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