Lowell, Massachusetts (Part 7)

Neighborhoods (Outer)

As Lowell grew and transportation improved, people moved away from the city center, setting up new communities.

South Lowell

South Lowell is a fairly large neighborhood, and a lot of it is fairly close to the city center. Then again, Lowell is basically a circle with a three mile radius around downtown, so nothing is ever really that far from anything else. It is located south (obviously) of downtown Lowell, on the banks of the Concord River. There are many industries in this area, and a large number of train tracks, which along with the Concord River, divide it into multiple smaller, distinct neighborhoods.

The Prince Spaghettiville Bridge over Lawrence Street, just beyond this sign is the Lowell Cemetery. Somebody obviously has a nice souvenir, since half the sign has been stolen. There are actually two of these bridges, the other informs you you are entering "Spaghettiville" while driving south on Gorham Street, right after the intersection with Moore Street. They carry trains. Prince Spaghetti (Aaaanthonny!!!!) had their plant here for I have no idea how long, and like everyone else, they decided to move elsewhere where labor would be cheaper a few years ago, taking a lot of jobs with them. The city was outraged to the point where many people wouldn't buy Prince products (my family gave up on that pretty quick), but the signs remain so visitors can get confused, thinking they're leaving Lowell, into the neighboring borough of Spaghettiville.

A nice little park on the banks of the Concord River near the Spaghettiville bridge. The city is really pushing for parks along the Concord River. My mom grew up in this part of the city, and a large number of her stories involve the Concord in some way or another.

A quiet street in South Lowell.

Pawtucketville

Pawtucketville is west of Centralville and across the Merrimack from the part of the Acre away from downtown, and the Middlesex Village part of the Highlands. The eastern part of Pawtucketville is fairly urban and home to the North Campus of the University of Massachusetts Lowell, while West Pawtucketville has many newer, suburban homes (and some massive new $300,000+ condo towers) and part of the Lowell-Dracut-Tyngsboro state forest.

A quick drive-by snapshot of part of the UMass Lowell campus, near the University Ave (Textile) bridge. This is North Campus, formerly the North Campus of University of Lowell, formerly Lowell Textile Institute that Kerouac wrote about. It is home to the more engineering oriented majors. South Campus, at the end of Broadway away from Downtown at the very edge of the Acre, began as a state teacher's college and still has more liberal artsy classes.

Highlands

The Highlands are quite large, and the edges of it are some of the more recently developed parts of the city. These pictures were taken on or around Tyler Park, on Westford Street, not too far from Chelmsford. Tyler Park was developed towards the end of the 19th century as streetcar lines came out this far. The small park itself was built by the firm (Olmsted) that did Central Park in Manhattan, Boston's Emerald Necklace, and numerous other parks and college campuses. Tyler Park was the smallest park they ever did.

Very few of the largest houses in this area are still single family, but they are still beautiful houses. You can imagine the kind of money the original residents of this neighborhood had.

Houses across from the park on Westford Street.

Looming over the southern edge of the Highlands, where the Lowell Connector, I-495 and US-3 intersect is the Cross-Point towers. If it's not the tallest building in Lowell, it's definitely the biggest, and it's almost surreal to see it towering over single-family residential neighborhoods. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of it from those angles. This was originally the world headquarters of Wang Laboratories, a computer manufacturer. The three connected towers here were built one at a time as the company's fortunes grew. Unfortunately, the quickly evolving personal computer market in the early 1980s sunk the company equally as quick, and this park was sold almost for nothing. The buildings are fairly well rented out again (Motorolla just moved in, well after these pictures were taken) and the area has a movie theater and some big chain restaurants as well now.

Belvidere

Belvidere is the wealthiest section of Lowell. It lies across the Concord River from the city center, up along a hill and towards the town of Tewksbury.

This is the Rogers Mansion, on Rogers Street (hmmm...). I believe it's some sort of institution now. At least it was at some point.

Across from it is Rogers Fort Hill Park. There is a hill behind me, this is the "Lower Park", and yes, the fountain does work. It is called Fort Hill because the Indians had built a fort on the top of it at some point - I'm sure it didn't end so well for them. Lowell is a pretty flat city with some large, steep hills coming seemingly out of nowhere. Some of them, like this one, are basically the rock cores of giant glacial snowballs that stopped rolling during the last ice age.

Houses on Nesmith Street, which isn't too far from Fort Hill. However, Nesmith Street is a major road now, and this particularly old part of Belvidere, relatively close to the city, is swamped with high speed traffic (Don't let that last picture fool you). These houses I believe are largely split into apartments or institutionally owned now. They are well maintained either way. Turn right just off frame in that last picture at the small park and you'll be on Andover Street, a wide road lined with a lot of really, really nice homes.

Between the angle formed by Nesmith and Andover Streets is a large hill. Up top of this hill are Lowell's most expensive and elaborate homes. My understanding is that these mansions push near a million dollars. Had they been in just about any other town in the area, they'd be well over that. A peculiarity about Lowell is the compactness of it all. These mansions are no more than a mile from parts of the city that are far, far less desirable. This sort of change isn't present in too many other places, and certainly not in my hometown of Tyngsboro, where my "neighborhood" was probably three to five miles across. Boston changes pretty fast as well, but it's not as fast...