Remembering Bobby Lambert

By Steve O’Connor On February 14th, Bobby Lambert died in South Deerfield, MA. at the age of 94. Bobby was a lifelong friend of my father, Jim O’Connor. Both, like Jack Kerouac, were born in Lowell, MA in 1922, and Bobby was later to play football with Jack Kerouac at…

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Wednesday in Downtown

After our weekend deep freeze and yesterday’s tropical rain, the bright sunshine and 40-something temperatures today convinced me to take a lunchtime walk downtown. My first stop was 200 Central Street which had put on an unauthorized pre-Winterfest light show last night when water infiltrated an underground electrical fixture and…

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Lowell City Council Meeting: February 16, 2016

Personnel subcommittee report: On Monday, February 29, three candidates for auditor will be interviewed by the full council. Plain Street Realignment motion response – Councilor Belanger asks about the extent of property takings. Manager Murphy says the city is minimizing the amount of land to be taken from the VFW.…

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Maura Healey on Opioid Epidemic

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey shared her thoughts on our society’s opioid epidemic in yesterday’s Boston Globe (“Cutting off the opioid epidemic at the root”). Despite all the attention devoted to this issue by legislators, public safety officials, and community groups, nothing will change, she wrote, until “we change the…

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Lowell Week in Review: February 14, 2016

Trolley Expansion Dies Quietly For nearly a decade, there has been talk of a greatly expanded trolley system for Lowell. Conceptually, the project would expand the National Park’s existing 1.5 mile trolley system to connect the Gallagher Terminal with downtown and with UMass Lowell campus centers. A consortium of local…

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