Menu
This morning’s balmy 27 degrees belies the weather situation a year ago today. Here’s what I wrote that morning: At 6:30 am on Monday, it’s 8 degrees and cloudy in Lowell. By this time yesterday, the National Weather Service had already issued a blizzard watch for eastern Massachusetts and Rhode…
Read More »
Lighting Lowell’s Canals and More At Tuesday’s meeting, the city council authorized the expenditure of $110,000 on LED lights to illuminate the Merrimack Canal along Lucy Larcom Park. Here’s some of what was said during the council meeting: Manager Murphy says Lucy Larcom Park has been underutilized. Winterfest will be…
Read More »An article in this morning’s Boston Globe (“Boston trails other cities in arts funding”) along with the blog post I wrote last night about the history of Lowell’s Brush Gallery got me thinking about the arts in Lowell. I define “arts” broadly. It includes painters and performers but also public…
Read More »Firearms Policy – Manager Murphy explains that the last time this was before the council, the council asked the manager to meet with the people critical of the current firearms policy. He says they had two main objections: the first was that the requirement was more stringent than in other…
Read More »By Fred Faust: Monday, January 18, 2016 at noon is the annual celebration at the Tsongas Center of the life and lessons of Martin Luther King Junior. Organized by Lura Smith for her foundation at Middlesex Community College, It is a meaningful way to spend a part of this national…
Read More »
Smith Baker Center Tuesday night the city council unanimously voted to sell the Smith Baker Center to the Coalition for a Better Acre (CBA) for $300,000. This is a big deal because without major renovations in the near future, the prominently-placed building will suffer the same fate as another unused…
Read More »Unfinished business: By Councilor Elliott to reconsider denial of grant of an easement to benefit property at 155 Mansur Street. Also vote to take out of order a petition by property owners (the Rombergs) to reconsider the denial of the petition to grant an easement onto his property from Fairview…
Read More »Okay, here’s another one of those Lowell connections. There’s a scene in the brilliant new film “The Martian” in which astronaut Mark Watney (actor Matt Damon of Massachusetts) travels to a remote location to uncover a craft sent to Mars long before his space mission. According to sources, it’s actually…
Read More »There’s always a Lowell connection, right? Farewell, David Bowie, rock star, pop star, culture star, endlessly inventive artist. When I heard the news today, I was reminded of a story told to me by Lowell singer-songwriter extraordinaire Bob Martin. He was breaking into the music business in the early 1970s,…
Read More »Random observations leftover from last week: Temperature Swings and Tires – Yesterday’s 57 degree high temperature provided quite a contrast to the 5 degrees at 6 a.m. on Tuesday with a stiff wind from the northwest. The tires on my car didn’t like it: the dashboard sensor read “Low Tire…
Read More »