Lowell, Massachusetts (Part 20)

Part 20 - Leftovers 2 - 2008

Second half...

Central Street made up for a closeup in the upcomming comedy This Side of the Truth. Half of these signs are Hollywood additions, and, since the movie is in a world where nobody lies or really has much imagination, quite literal "Guitars for Sale." Although I didn't see Jennifer Garner, I did see actor and director Ricky Gervais! He apparently picked Lowell both for the variety of scenery within a short distance, and of course, the new Massachusetts tax incentives for filmmaking. I think he also said based on the premise of a very literal world, he wanted a very classic American looking, no-nonsense town. That's Lowell alright. Ricky Gervais maintains a blog about the state of the film.

Doors Open Lowell 2008. This is the inside of the old train station that I've watched work progress on. This will become a dance studio for Middlesex Community College. Nice they're doing something with it, but I was hoping for a more commercial, or especially, given its past as a movie theatre and bowling alley, entertainment, re-use.

Central Street from the windows of the old station. Like last year, it rained alot during this Doors Open, and unfortunately, I wasn't really around to go anyhow. I missed the Folk Festival this year too... The two story building in the first picture is local radio station WCAP. Old pictures of this block show that at one point, there was a shooting gallery in that building, and it had four stories. I spent some time at WCAP when I was younger, and the story was the top stories were lost in a fire. The second picture shows the newly two-way Middlesex Street, and the new garage on the right-hand side. Apparently some sort of Mexican-Irish restaurant-nightclub will be the first ground-floor tenant.

The Hamilton Company mills on the Hamilton Canal. It is common in Lowell, and these buildings are an obvious case, for the mills to have floors that were added on later. Note in the second picture the change in window style and the additional space below the top two floors on the mill on the right. The lower, square-cut and granite-silled windows are definitely a pre Civil War design and must date to the 1830s or 1840s. The added floors and the building on the outside edge of the canal (the water flows down to the Pawtucket Canal through the buildings on the right) are a much later Italianette design. The older buildings would've originally had gabled roofs. I would hate to be the engineer responsible for figuring out if you could safely add two whole floors to a masonry building.

This building on the right was one of the later buildings built for the Hamilton Company, and after being Joan Fabrics, it is now a luxury apartments building called Loft 27. We went inside during Doors Open (when I took this picture) and it was wicked nice inside.

A late 19th century tower at the Appleton Mill complex.

More late 19th century buildings at the Market Mills, formerly the Lowell Manufacturing Company. The second building was right around 1900 and may have been right after the century turns. Compare the windowframe design to the much more elaborate windows in the first picture. The actual windows themselves in the second picture are ca. 1980.

Early 20th century architecture, one of the last buildings built for Lowell Manufacturing Co. After this building and a few other nearby ones were constructed, the company folded and the property was bought by the Bigelow Carpet Company

That coal shed again at the Lowell Mfg. Co. yard.

Alley between Market and Middle Streets. The big silver chimney is for a smokehouse that's been YEARS in the making.

Eastern Canal. The Sun ran an article about how there's some talk about an open market back here. That'd be really cool.

A tree in front of the Middlesex Community College building. This building was built as some sort of corporate education center for Wang, but they couldn't've used it for very long. The building in the background is the Doubletree Hotel.

Detail in the stonework of the building that now houses Cafe Paradiso. Built in the last fifth of the 19th century, this used to be the central fire station.

The Bon Marché building on Merrimack Street. They have done a great job keeping up this 1892 department store building. Note the stained glass and the masonry lion's head.

The Chalifoux building was also a department store, built in 1906.

There! Done.