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On Sunday, February 23, 2025, St. Anne’s Episcopal Church presented “Freedom Seekers: The Underground Railroad and St. Anne’s Lowell” a speaking program that featured UMass Lowell History Professor Robert Forrant and Jacquelynn Coles of the Black Lowell Coalition. The event was part of St. Anne’s year-long bicentennial celebration and was…
Read More »Malcolm Sharps and the Long Road By Stephen O’Connor Nous devrions pourtant lui porter quelques fleurs… —Swinburne It was 1979. I had been on a train all night from Paris to Montpellier, 735 km. This was before the days of the TGV that now flies along the…
Read More »The 100th anniversary issue of The New Yorker magazine (Feb. 10) includes a literary scoop, the first publication of a previously unknown poem by Robert Frost (1874-1963). The short poem, “Nothing New,” dated 1918 in Amherst, Mass., is written in the front of a copy of his second book, North…
Read More »Long ago Lowell buys local – (PIP #59) By Louise Peloquin The “buy local” rallying cry is not new. Since the time Lowell was called “The Venice of America” the city has prided itself on promoting its products. (1) This is the first in a series on the topic. L’Etoile –…
Read More »The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. No Country for Love by Yaroslav Trofimov, the Ukrainian-born chief foreign affairs correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, covers Ukraine from 1930-1954 and is based on the real-life experiences of his own grandmother, whom he interviewed right up to the…
Read More »The entry below is being cross-posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. There’s a new crime boss in town, and he’s the old crime boss with the gloves off. There was plenty of crime in the first Trump administration, but much of it was behind a gauzy veil. It mostly had…
Read More »Tuesday night the Lowell City Council endorsed a motion by Councilor Rita Mercier that “the mayor enter into negotiations with the city manager and city council in executive session to discuss extending his contract, pay scale, etc.” As it appeared on the agenda, the motion did not specify the length…
Read More »On Friday, February 14, 2025, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance spoke at the Munich Security Conference (MSC). Held each February since 1963 in Munich, Germany, the conference provides a platform for leaders to discuss the most pressing security challenges facing the world and is a venue for diplomatic initiatives and…
Read More »A recent Lowell Sun article about the coming rehabilitation of the former Royal Theater building at 484 Merrimack Street recalled a passage from Legends of Little Canada, a memoir by Charlie Gargiulo about growing up in that neighborhood just before and as it succumbed to the Urban Renewal wrecking ball.…
Read More »Bruce Springsteen (courtesy of Wikimedia Commons) “His songs will last as long as other people can see themselves in his songs.”–June Skinner Sawyers A few of the regular contributors to this blog kid each other and the readers about “There’s always a Lowell connection” to subjects and persons that come…
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