Last week, my wife, Rosemary, and I diverted to Hyde Park, New York, on the way back home from Syracuse University to see the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. The experience was well worth the hour-and-a-half drive south from Albany along the Hudson River and surprisingly relevant. Once…
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I had the privilege of working with Tom McKay on a few committees and projects over the past many years, and I want to say “thanks” to him for his huge contribution to the ongoing cultural revival in Lowell. Tom understood that the cultural industry is pivotal to Lowell’s strength…
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On the Lowell Memorial Auditorium website, I found this fascinating nugget in Ed Harley’s history of the building—PM “After its dedication in 1922, the Lowell Memorial Auditorium hosted a variety of conventions, civic and religious affairs, and programs of purely recreational or educational values. Liberty Hall became the home of…
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My brother Richard recently came across a 1930s promotional flier for an event in Lowell that I had never heard about: Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd appeared in the Moses Greeley Parker Lecture Series on Dec. 13, 1935. His topic was the Second Byrd Antarctic Expedition, whose duration was from…
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In the past few years at the Lowell Summer Music Series at Boarding House Park, I have been struck by the superlative musicianship of the artists presented by the organizers, Lowell National Historical Park and the Lowell Festival Foundation. Night after night the featured artists and their bands demonstrate the…
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This is a reproduction of the Ishtar Gate built by King Nebuchadnezzar II at the entrance to Babylon about 600 years before Jesus of Nazareth was born. You can’t see it in Iraq these days, but there’s a version in a German museum that was built in the 1930s from remains…
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The folks at Middlesex Community College threw a party for more than 500 people at Lowell Memorial Auditorium last night with the best music that could be ordered up, All-Beatles-All-the-Time. On stage was the top Beatles tribute band in this part of the country, Beatlejuice, whose players served up note-perfect versions…
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