The romance of Lowell

Seal of the City of Lowell, one of the first great textile-manufacturing towns in America.

Pawtucket Canal at Central Street looking west, in Lowell. The 19th Century textile mills have been converted to other uses, if not torn down,

-Photo by John Phelan

“A golden Byzantine dome rises from the roofs along the canal, a Gothic copy of Chartres arises from the slums of Moody Street, little children speak French, Greek, Polish, and even Portuguese on their way to school. And I have a recurrent dream of simply walking around the deserted twilight streets of Lowell in the mist, eager to turn every known and fabled corner…it always makes me happy when I wake up.’’

— Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), American novelist and poet and Lowell native