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When people who lived and worked in Lowell were trying to figure out how to revive the city in the 1960s and ’70s, one piece of wisdom that emerged during the planning was that it makes sense for Lowell as a community to invest in its assets that can’t be…
Read More »For any community, its cultural treasures come in different forms. Sometimes the treasure is a distinctive building or place in nature and sometimes it comes in the form of a living cultural treasure. Today’s SUN has two stories, somewhat related, about cultural treasures in the city. One story details the…
Read More »Dave Daniel and Steve O’Connor last night successfully launched their new books at the Old Court pub with the help of more than 200 people who came armed with good will, good humor, a good thirst, and a good appetite for literature written by somebody they might see in the…
Read More »Yesterday morning I attended two events of the Franco-American Week Festival: the annual memorial ceremony at the Little Canada Monument near the corner of Aiken and Hall streets and the traditional flag-raising ceremony at City Hall. The Little Canada Monument has been re-landscaped so that the granite stone with bronze…
Read More »Pawtucket Falls post card image /UML Center for Lowell History The other day it was people from Lawrence weighing-in on the Enel North America plan to regulate the flow of water over the historic Pawtucket Falls with a pneumatic crest gate, or “inflatable bladder,” installation system on the Pawtucket Dam. As…
Read More »Thanks to Dick for his report on planning guru Frank Keefe’s nutshell version of the Lowell revitalization story and success recipe. Bill Lipchitz’s comment about the Center City Committee being formed in 1972 added a key benchmark. Since he was there, maybe Bill can clarify the connection between the CCC…
Read More »The concluding session of the 2010 “Public Matters: Empowering Lowell’s Leaders” program took place this evening at Middlesex Community College. Urban planning guru Frank Keefe (Lowell’s chief city planner a long time ago) was the keynote speaker. I found his remarks fascinating, uplifting and, to anyone interested in Lowell’s developmental…
Read More »Speaking of Franco-American Week, in the new New Yorker (June 28) the Talk of the Town section has a piece called “In the Stacks” about a recent display at the New York Public Library. It turns out that librarian Anne Garner specializes in “marginalia,” that is, comments and marks made…
Read More »We’re halfway through Franco-American Week. Here’s a quick update on remaining events: Thurs, June 24, 9.15 am—Memorial ceremony at Little Canada Monument, Aiken St, opposite UMass Lowell Recreation Center; 10 am—Flag-raising at Lowell City Hall; 7 pm—Prayer service to honor St. Jean Baptiste at Franco-American School Grotto followed by wine-and-cheese…
Read More »Well, if we had a Campaign for Local Literature, I’d propose ‘Support the Books’ as one of the Campaign’s bumper stickers, but we don’t. What the readers of the region can do, though, is show up en masse at the next available local book launching, which happens to be this…
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