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Last Saturday I attended a program sponsored by the Lawrence History Center called “Reclaiming Urban Renewal: Community Efforts and Impacts in Lawrence, Massachusetts and other Industrial Cities.” At the event, I attended a fascinating breakout session on Urban Renewal in Lowell that featured Peter Aucella, Fred Faust, and Chuck Parrott…
Read More »Thanks to Tony Sampas for these photos and the accompanying text . . . On Saturday May 7, 2016, under the leadership of Mehmed Ali PhD four scholars represented UMass Lowell at: “Reclaiming Urban Renewal: Community Efforts and Impacts in Lawrence, Massachusetts and Other Industrial Cities.” The group’s session was…
Read More »This is the second in a series of posts about what’s happening with cultivated and wild things on my property in the South Common Historic District.— PM The birds. The birds. As a kid, one of my favorite movies was Alfred Hitchcock’s ominous 1963 movie “The Birds” with Tippi Hedren…
Read More »THE WAMESIT TRAIL OF TEARS: A Story of the life, trials, and FINAL exodus of our Wamesit and Pawtucket neighbors By Jay Gaffney “he buys the Indian’s moccasins and baskets, then buys his hunting grounds, and at length forgets where he is buried and plows up his bones” Henry David…
Read More »We had the Earth Day Festival & Urban Growers Gathering today in downtown Lowell. Hundreds of people marched in a funky Green parade, learned gardening techniques in workshops, swapped seeds and local planting tips, and enjoyed live dance and music. The sky cleared just as the parade stepped off from…
Read More »Michael Leong in the online cultural publication hyperallergic.com contributes what could be a game-changing review of recent books by poet Joseph Donahue (Lowell-connected and holder of an endowed professor’s chair at Duke University). Here’s the opening paragraph: Among contemporary American poets, Joseph Donahue is an underrecognized master. For years, he…
Read More »I will post updates on the wild and cultivated things around my house this spring and summer in the spirit of the “Flowering City” concept of our community. These are my notes from yesterday when the morning air was cooler than today.—PM The air still has a chill in it…
Read More »About ten years ago, there was an annual program called “Be a Tourist in Your Own Town” organized by the Lowell Historic Board, Greater Merrimack Valley Convention and Visitor Bureau, National Park Service, and others. It was a franchise-type operation like the various “First Night” celebrations around the country. I…
Read More »In the aftermath of Tuesday’s vote by the Lowell City Council to renounce the upcoming visit to the city by Hun Manet, a general in the Cambodian Army and the son of that nation’s prime minister, a number of non-Cambodian residents have expressed their unfamiliarity with Cambodian history and politics.…
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