Lowell, Massachusetts (Part 13)

Lowell Folk Festival - July 2007

I'm almost embarrassed to put this page up since many of the pictures are of empty streets and have just about nothing to do with the festival itself. But, it's such a big deal and I'm so embarrassed I'm not that interested in it, I might as well talk about it:

The Lowell Folk Festival is the largest free folk festival in the country, and reportedly brings over 200,000 visitors over the last weekend in July into a city with a population of 100,000's downtown. There is food, music, arts and crafts, etc. It basically shuts down the entire city center, as there are vendors in the streets, and six performance venues. I'm not a big fan of folk or ethnic music, so I didn't photograph any of the performances. I do like all kinds of food, but that's not a good topic for pictures. Some of these pictures were taken very early in the morning - don't worry, when the festival gets going, the streets are packed.

Merrimack Street from the end of Central Street.

Kearney Square - Merrimack Street looking to East Merrimack Street.

Central Street - looking to Merrimack Street from the intersection with Market Street.

Market Street, looking to Central and then to Dutton. I'm assuming the foggy look is due to the cookouts. It really, really fascinated me that you could drive the wrong way on Market Street for the festival, due to Merrimack and Middle Streets being closed. I really am such a loser.

Shattuck Street, looking at Saint Anne's on Merrimack Street - see, I really did hang out at the festival!

People riding the trolley around the festival.

People on Merrimack Street.

Some of the food booths on French Street.

A performance at Boardinghouse Park.

A party in the parking lot across from the Old Worthen.

John Street, looking to Merrimack Street. Downtown Lowell usually has so little weekend traffic, that it's really great to see this many people down here. I wish, if the city could figure out how to do it cost-effectively, that we would have smaller festivals or just a pedestrian mall year round with closed off streets. As I've mentioned before, one of the best things about Lowell is the walkability of it all, and that's something we should really capitalize on. Vehicular traffic is not severely affected by a street like John or Middle being closed for a few hours on a Saturday...