Lowell

The Mills Weren’t Made of Marble

In recognition of Labor Day, here is the lead editorial from the September 7, 1992 edition of The New York Times – A Labor Day piece about the then-recently opened Boott Cotton Mills Museum. The Boott Cotton Mills Museum is open daily from 10am until 5pm, especially on Labor Day. …

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The House That Stavros Built

The House That Stavros Built By Steve O’Connor Stavros Panagiotopoulos is at his customary table at the rear of the Athenian Corner on Market Street. At the age of 87, he still drives to his restaurant every morning, unlocking the door at 6:00 AM. He puts on the coffee, and…

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I Was a Teenage Bibliophile

I Was a Teenage Bibliophile By Pierre V. Comtois This story originally appeared in River Muse: Tales of Lowell and the Merrimack Valley. It’s hard to believe now, but at one time Lowell was a veritable Mecca for lovers of the written word with books and magazines available almost everywhere…

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Lowell People: Dr. Gilman Kimball

This article originally appeared in the Summer 2021 edition of The Epitaph, the quarterly newsletter of Lowell Cemetery. Dr. Gilman Kimball (1804-1892) During the second half of the nineteenth century, Lowell became the center of the lucrative patent medicine business. Three of the primary purveyors – James C. Ayer, Charles…

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Boston Globe Reviews Miller’s New Poems About Merrimack River and Lowell

  Nina MacLaughlin of The Boston Globe (6-6-21) reviews Matthew W. Miller’s new book of poems, cover-to-cover about the Merrimack River and Lowell: “In his hewn and forceful new collection of poetry, “Tender the River” (Texas Review), Matthew W. Miller makes a coursing book-length portrait of the Merrimack River, its…

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Lowell Goes to Hollywood

The recent death of Academy Award winning and Lowell-born actor Olympia Dukakis at age 89 got me thinking about Lowell’s contributions to American movies and television. There are many. Dukakis, the cousin of former Massachusetts governor Mike Dukakis, was born in Lowell in 1931. Her parents, Constantine and Alexandra (Christos)…

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