UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
CENTER FOR LOWELL HISTORY
ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION
LOWELL NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK
UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
“FROM CREATION TO OPERATION: TWENTY-FIVE
YEARS AT LOWELL NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK”
INFORMANT: WILLIAM LIPCHITZ
INTERVIEWER: MEHMED ALI
DATE: JULY 27, 2004
A = ALI
W = WILLIAM
Tape 04.05
A: …William Lipchitz, on July 27, 2004, here at the CTI Building on Dutton Street.
And first Bill, a little background info, where and when were you born?
W: I was born in Lowell, January 7, 1942.
A: And where did you go to school at?
W: Well I went to the Oakland School, and then the Moody School, and then Lowell
High School, and then Lowell Technological Institute.
A: And then what did you take up at Lowell Tech?
W: Chemistry.
A: Oh, okay. And did you ever go on for further [schooling from there]?
W: Yes. Actually, after I got a Bachelors Degree in Chemistry, I stayed on and got a
Masters Degree in Chemistry, and then I taught at Boston State College for five years
teaching Chemistry, Physics and Astronomy. And then I left there and came back to
Lowell, and went to, but I went to BU and got a degree in Urban Affairs. So I’m now
changed, (A: Very good) changed fields drastically.
A: Yah. What year did you get your degree from BU?
W: ’73.
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A: Okay. What neighborhood did you grow up in?
W: In Belvidere.
A: Okay, and describe that neighborhood back in that time period.
W: Well let’s see, we’re on Fairmount Street and our neighborhood had a lot of woods
around it, not as many houses as there are now. There were only about two or three other
families with kids my age.
A: Oh really?
W: So (--)
A: The makeup of the neighborhood was primarily Yankee folks back then? Older
folks?
W: Um, well not necessarily just Yankees.
A: Okay, some Irish folks.
W: And some Greek folks.
A: Okay.
W: You know, other, other ah (--) Well for example, Sampson. You remember Ellen
Sampson. (A: Yah) They were neighbors. [McGaddens], the Brennans, Sullivans.
A: So it was fairly mixed by the time you came of age.
W: Right. And then down at the bottom of the hill was the Donohues, and the Flathers,
and a few other people like that.
A: And what were your parents’ occupations?
W: My father was a lawyer, (A: Okay) and my mother, well my mother was basically a
housewife at that time. But then my father died in 1949, and I was only seven, and my
mother ended up going to work in the Registry of Deeds as a clerk.
A: Oh really, huh. What was your father like? And what were his interests?
W: Well since I was only seven, I can only tell you what other people have told me. I
mean he was, as a lawyer he was well liked and well respected, and he had a very easy
charm about him, telling stories and you know the way it tends to run in law, the law
business I guess. I think he was noted as a good lawyer. He did all kinds of things. I
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mean criminal law, real estate law, whatever, whatever was available. He had been born
in Lowell in the early 1900s, and went to Lowell High School, and went to BU Law
School. And he, and at BU law School he was a classmate of George Eliades, Sr.
A: Gotcha.
W: And so when they got back to Lowell after law school they, they had a, they shared
an office (A: Okay) in the Chalifoux Building.
A: And where were your grandparents from originally?
W: Well on my father’s side, my grandfather came from Lithuania. (A: Okay) He came
over here around 1895 to escape the [unclear]. And my grandmother was from
someplace in Poland, and she came over here and lived on a farm in Andover before she
met my grandfather I guess.
A: And your grandfather came to Lowell from Lithuania?
W: Actually no. He came (--) He went to New York, and he went to New Bedford. He
sort of bounced around until he ended up in Lowell, but he came up to Lowell because he
had some relatives up here. And he settled, they lived on Howard Street off of
Chelmsford.
A: Yah.
W: And he ended up having a store there, and he had you know, dry goods and you
know, convenience store [basically the same]. (A: Yah) And then later on he became a
supplier of other stores. And he had this horse and wagon, he’d drive around and my
father took the ride on the wagon and helped deliver stuff.
A: Now were they attached to a certain synagogue?
W: Probably, but I don’t know which one it was. Whatever. There’s probably only I
would guess.
A: There was actually three, and I just (--)
W: In 1900?
A: Yah, probably. (W: Really) Well maybe by 1905. And they were split along kind
of ethnic lines, and class lines. (W: Really) Yah, there was like an Austrian/German one,
which was the high-class Jewish people, and a Polish and Russian, and I think were the
three.
W: I don’t know. It could have been Polish, or the Russian one I would guess, but my
grandfather had been trained as a Rabbi. (A: Really) And spoke several languages.
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And when he came over here and went through Ellis Island he made sure they spelled his
name right, which sometimes later we thought, “Why didn’t he change it like everybody
else and make it a little easier. But, but he didn’t. Now my mother’s side, my mother’s
grandfather came over here I think in 1855 or so?
A: From?
W: From Ireland. (A: Umhm) And he had, his mother came too. He was like in his 20s
I would say when he came over. He married here and they had, he had a lot of children.
In fact my grandmother was the youngest of about twelve kids, and her oldest brother
was more like another generation old. (A: Sure) So like twenty years older, or
something. Their name was Rogers, but that’s not, I mean obviously it was, that’s the
anglicized version. (A: Sure) I’m not sure what it was.
A: Yah. When your folks got married, did that cause any disruption being Jewish and
Irish?
W: Yes.
A: And tell us about that.
W: Well, well as I said, my mother’s father and mother were born in Lowell (A: Yah) in
the 1870s, and anyway, my mother and my father met at Lowell High School. They were
both in the drama class. They were into plays and things. And, but it wasn’t, you know,
it wasn’t looked on [unclear], you know this catholic and Jewish couldn’t (--). So they
waited a long time after school, and everything else. And then actually they were about
to get married I think in 1929, when the crash came and they didn’t have any money
suddenly. So they waited until 19, I think ’34 before they actually got married.
A: Really. Wow.
W: And they couldn’t get married in the church directly. They [would never been]
allowed. So they got married I guess by a priest somewhere.
A: Oh really.
W: My father had to sign a piece of paper saying that any children would be brought up
catholic.
A: Really.
W: He didn’t seem to mind I guess. So.
A: And were you guys brought up catholic?
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W: Yah. So, yah, there was, but there was some you know, concern. Although, I mean I
have to tell you growing up I never felt alienated in anyway from either side of the
family. I mean you know, I was accepted, and the kids were accepted by both.
A: There was no big, it was no big rift in the family when the marriage occurred
[unclear].
W: Well I’m not sure about that. (A: Really) But as far as the children were concerned
we had no problem with you know, [unclear]. And in fact, after my father died my
mother kept bringing us over to visit with his mother. They lived up in the Highlands.
A: Now what was your first employment, Bill?
W: My first real job when I was in high school, well let’s see. Yah I guess I would say
first real job was Glennie’s Ice Cream.
A: Okay. That was the first ice cream in the city, or something like that?
W: I don’t know, but he had three stands. One was up on the Boulevard, one was on
Rogers Street, which is where I worked because it was close to my house. And the third
one, he had, he had a store down on Appleton Street, which is now a parking lot;
Appleton and Central.
A: Appleton and Gorham?
W: And Gorham. Appleton and Gorham, right. But anyway, I worked at the one on
Rogers Street. It was a little you know (--)
A: Is that where Jillie’s is?
W: No, it’s where the Lincoln Mercury place was.
A: Oh, so pretty far down. Did he have a farm or anything?
W: No. No, he bought his, he bought his cream from some dairy up in Vermont though.
So I worked there a couple of years in high school, and then a couple of years while I was
at Lowell Tech. But the second couple of years I was up at the Boulevard and as
assistant manager, and at one point I was going to make the ice cream, but somehow, I
forget what happened [unclear]. But I worked there for seven years.
A: Yah. You got done with school in, done with college?
W: I got my Bachelor’s Degree in ’63 and then I stayed on and finished in ’65 for a
Master’s Degree, although I didn’t actually get the degree until ’66, but that’s another
issue. (A: Yah) And actually went out to the University of Alberta for, I was going to
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get a PhD in Chemistry, (A: Really) but I decided once I got out there that really wasn’t
what I wanted to do, so I came back. And that’s when I got the job at Boston State.
A: Okay. And tell us about, how would you describe the political situation of Lowell
back in the late 60s?
W: Well let’s see. Now I started my political activism in 1956.
A: Oh okay. Well let’s go back to the 50s then!
W: When I was only fourteen, and my best friend was George O’Meara. And his father,
George O’Meara II, or whatever he was, was very active in politics in Lowell, and he was
the Kennedy guy in Lowell, and all of that stuff. So in ’56 he had us out collecting
Dollars for Democrats for Hadley Stevenson with a little can or something. So I went
across the street to the first person I saw, who happened to be Clemie Costello, and asked
if he wanted to donate Dollars for Democrats. He said, “No.” He said he supported
General Eisenhower. So, and I, I figured out that this wasn’t you know, all it was
cracked up to be that George had said, “This will be easy, just walk down the street.” So.
But in, in ’58, then Jack Kennedy was running for re-election in the Senate and I got
involved in that campaign.
A: You did, wow.
W: And in fact, now I was, I was the editor of the Review at the high school. (A: Okay)
The Review was the student paper. (A: Yup) And Kennedy came to Lowell, he and his
wife came for a campaign visit, but since he was a sitting Senator at the time, you know,
they made a big deal. He came to the high school, and he visited the high school. And
then they had a reception for him at the Lowell Memorial Auditorium. (A: Okay) And,
and so I was waiting around outside for some reason I don’t remember, and this limo
pulls up and in it was Mrs. Kennedy and Mary O’Meara, that’s George’s sister there. (A:
Right) So, and she calls me over and she says, “Would you like interview Mrs. Kennedy
for the paper?” So I said, “Sure.” So I, you know, how do you like it in Lowell? And
you know, what do you ask? But you know, it was the scoop! I got the scoop!
A: Yah. Yah. And so that was printed in the paper?
W: Well in the Lowell High School Review.
A: Ah, great.
W: And then I remember being in the auditorium and Kennedy gave a speech, and then
everyone lined up in this big long line to go buy and shake hands with him. So that was
like kind of a big deal.
A: And you stood in line for that.
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W: Yah.
A: You know he had a dinner right in this building when it was Knights of Columbus.
W: No kidding. What year was that?
A: Probably ’54, maybe ’52.
W: ’52 would be the first year he ran for the Senate. It could have been then, yah.
A: Yah. So tell us about George O’Meara, and Mary O’Meara.
W: George was (--)
A: Which one was the real political brain?
W: George was probably the political brain, but Mary was very astute.
A: I heard Mary was the brain behind that outfit, but now I’m [unclear].
W: I saw (--) I mean Mary was more of the you know, like I said, young George was my
good friend, and (--)
A: This is the fellow who’s the scientist, or?
W: Yah, he’s a, he has his PhD from Notre Dame, or something. He’s down in Florida
studying mosquitoes.
A: He’s just been published in some big journal recently.
W: I’m not surprised, yah.
A: I’m friendly with Mark O’Meara (W: Oh yah) who I worked with at the Post Office.
W: Well at the time, now George, George the father had lost his wife. And so young
George and Cathy O’Meara, who was his twin sister I think, they were a pair of twins.
So Mary O’Meara sort of helping raise the kids. And then George Sr. married again,
probably around that time, in the (--)
A: In the late 50s, early 60s.
W: Late 50s, because that’s you know, because we graduated high school in ’59. So I
think that, that was about the time he got married again. And then Mark was one of
them. And then he had another daughter, Maureen, who died.
A: Who died, yah.
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W: But George was, I mean he was a big guy, a big, I mean politically a big guy in
Lowell because of his connection with the Kennedys. And so in 1960 (--)
A: You got the call again?
W: I was a sophomore at Lowell Tech, and I was asked to help organize students up at
the Lowell Tech for Kennedy. And I worked on that campaign so diligently that I
flunked math.
A: Really!
W: I was, I was too busy to study for the exam, because I was doing political work and I
got an F in math, but anyway. So that was, that was an interesting campaign of course,
because you know, he won the presidency. So that was kind of very exciting. And then
in 60 (--)
A: Were you able to get a good turnout from the students back in that period?
W: Well I probably did a good job, but you know, I mean he was going to take
Massachusetts anyway. So, you know, but I mean it was interesting to learn the ropes,
you know. I mean we did everything in that campaign, you know, putting up signs in
bumper stickers, and handing out leaflets, and going door to door, and everything you
would, you know, you have to do to win a campaign. And then in ’62 George was
helping Chub Peabody to run for Governor. So he enlisted us again, and Peabody won
that race. And then he lost in ’64 to Bellotti who had been his Lieutenant Governor.
A: He lost the ah (--)
W: The primary.
A: The primary, oh okay.
W: Yah, Bellotti challenged him.
A: And then Bellotti lost to Volpe?
W: Right. Yah. I remember too, after that ’64, after the loss, that we had, we were using
the headquarters, which is now at the corner of Bridge and Merrimack, but it’s now like a
recruiting office. (A: Yup) But that was the headquarters for Peabody. And then when
Peabody lost, the Bellotti people came in and took over the headquarters, and they asked
if we would help, stay and help them with the (--) Which I was a little miffed about it, but
I remember Bob Maguire was doing the Bellotti Campaign at the time.
A: Oh he was.
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W: So that’s the first time I met him.
A: Yah, yah. Now about that time George O’Meara ran for council, right?
W: George ran for city council I believe in ’65.
A: ’65 election.
W: Right, and my brother Gerald was more active in that campaign. ’65 was the time
that I moved to Boston, (A: Okay) but Joe had come back from wherever he was. I think
he was, well he had gone to UMass Amherst, and he, he got his Master’s Degree out
there. And I believe he was back for a short period of time, and he was active in that
campaign. And then, then he went off to Cleveland and got his PhD in History of
[unclear]. But anyway.
A: So do you remember much about that election?
W: Well not a lot, because I was living in Boston and so.
A: Yah.
W: But what happened was in ’69, when Paul decided he wanted to run, he came back
from the Peace Corps, wherever he had been. Well he had been in the Peace Corps, but
he (--)
A: West, West Indies.
W: Right, he had been in the West Indies. And he came back because Bobby Kennedy
was running for president. This was ’68, right? (A: Yup) And he was going to work for
Bobby Kennedy, and Kennedy got shot.
A: So he was actually going to help out with that campaign?
W: And he (--) So he’s (--) I remember him saying to me, you know, I’m going to run
for office now. You know, this is, I’ve seen my calling, or whatever. You know, that’s
what I want to do. And of course he figured well he had to start in Lowell, because
that’s where he had a base. So he said, “I want to run for City Council.” So I said,
“Okay, I’ll be your campaign manager.” And he, “Okay.” The two of us against the
world, you know. What do we know? So that was the beginning of that.
A: Now did you know Paul since childhood, or?
W: Since high school.
A: Since high school.
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W: He was actually (--) See now my brother Gerald is a year older than me. Okay, but
because we were so close in age we always hung around together. And so he, he was
actually in Paul’s class, the class of ’58, (A: Okay) but I used to hang around with those
guys all the time, because I don’t know, that was the group I hung around with. So I
knew Paul pretty while, you know, in high school.
A: So tell us about your impressions of him as a very young man in high school.
W: I always thought he was very smart. (A: Yah) He was, he had a great selfdeprecating humor, sense of humor. We were not big time BMOCs in those days.
A: What’s BMOC?
W: Big man on campus. We were not that. We were the [fringe] group I would say, in
high school.
A: Would you call yourselves nerds?
W: Not exactly a nerd, but certainly not you know, the cool guys. You know, not like
the football players and that kind of stuff. I mean we used to, I remember almost every
Friday night we would go bowling and get pizza, you know. That was like, that was (--)
A: And no girls around, right?
W: One of the guys in our group was Jim O’Leary who is now a judge. His father was
Dan O’Leary, the President of Lowell State.
A: Oh yah, yah!
W: Jimmy was a funny guy. And I can remember, and they used to come to our house
because my mother was at work in the afternoons, you know. We hung out at the house
because there was nobody else around. So he could use the telephone and try to call a
girl and get a date without having his whole family. He had six or seven brothers anyway
and sisters. So he’d be sitting there, and we’d be sitting around listening to this
conversation, right, and he would try to you know, try to convince some girl to go out
with him. So it wasn’t, you know, it wasn’t conducive to you know, getting lots of dates.
We were just, we [unclear].
A: Did you guys talk philosophy back then, politics? I’m talking about high school,
maybe immediate post high school days?
W: It’s hard to say. I mean I know, in my house my parents were very politically aware,
and strong democrats, and supported Roosevelt and Truman.
A: And did your father help George Eliades?
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W: Well my father was, he was a delegate to the 44 Convention. He was very active in
politics in the Democratic Party. He didn’t, George Eliades didn’t run until 19… Well I
don’t know when he ran for the council, but he was mayor in 1950 I think?
A: Yah, so he would have ran in ’49, which is the year your father died.
W: Right, but my father died in March. So he probably didn’t (--)
A: Even help out.
W: But my father did, he used to, he used to advise, there was a mayor named Drouin,
Jim Drouin. (A: Sure) He was an advisor to Drouin, and then he was also, I think
Drouin named him to the Board of Health, or something like that. He was on some (--)
A: Yup.
W: In fact Marie Sweeney told me a story not too long ago.
A: Because her uncle, or (--)
W: Yah, something to do with somebody in her family that was (--)
A: Dr. Joe Sweeney was the head of the Board of Health. So that would be Bill’s uncle
or something?
W: Somehow my father’s name came up in relation to whatever she, I can’t remember
the story now, but he was on the Board of Health, I remember that. But he was also, and
the other thing he, he was an expert in Plan E Proportional Representation vote counting.
Every time when they’d have the election, and they’d have the proportional
representation vote, and then they had this huge count down at the auditorium, the
recounts I guess they were, the would be hired by some candidate to you know, protect
his interest because it was so complicated and confusing to figure out whose vote got
counted when. I don’t know if you have (A: Transfer) have anything on Plan E, and PR
stuff, but (--)
A: Oh it’s (--) I have a court case that involved, actually I think, no it wasn’t Eliades, it
was Contakos vs. Sampson, Mr. Sampson. Sam Sampson. (W: Right) And there’s a
great quote, that’s quote from the law, and it explains how the proportional representation
vote, and that, I’ll send it to you. It’s hilarious to look, to try to read it. It makes
absolutely not sense whatsoever.
W: Well Contakos was related to Eliades. (A: Right) He was his brother-in-law I
guess, or something? (A: Right) Sampson was, the story I got, and I, you know, this is
just here say, that the Eliades and the Contakos came from the Athens area, and the
Sampsons came from the Sparta area, and it was like going back to Greece and the fight
between Athens and Sparta, the whole thing. That they were Laconians, like the Laconia
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Lounge up here. The Spartans were one side, and the Athenians considered themselves a
little more [unclear]. So. And but Sampson lived like a block away from us.
A: Really? Yah.
W: And he had two daughters, Cleo and Cathy Ester who were in the neighborhood, who
were, I don’t know, they didn’t mix too well with us.
A: Really? Were they aloof?
W: I don’t know. I think they were just (--) Well I don’t know. They just (--)
A: Undoubtedly their parents said, “You better stay away from those Irish boys.” If we
know anything about the Sampsons.
W: Yah, I still remember that. (A: So um) Well anyway, yah so.
A: So you and, you and Paul against the world. (W: Yah) And tell us what happened in
that campaign, and how you began to formulate the strategy, etc.
W: Yah, you were asking me, did he exhibit any political tendencies?
A: Yes.
W: To tell you the truth, I don’t remember necessarily, but I knew his father was
republican.
A: Right, right, right.
W: So at one point when he was starting his campaign, and he had worked for Brad
Morse (A: Correct) for a while (A: Yah) as an intern. And Brad Morse had, and there
was a guy named Duncan Heslin, who was a Morse guy, that tried to convince Paul he
should be a republican. (A: Yup) And I remember having this discussion at his house,
his father’s house out in Chelmsford, just Paul and me, and Mr. Tsongas was there. And
the discussion was, should he be a republican, run as a republican, or a democrat? And
his father was saying, well if you run as a republican there are fewer candidates, you have
a better chance to move up the ladder, you know, and you can get this help from the
Morse guys. And I’m saying, Paul you’re not a republican, you’re a democrat.
Everything you talked (--) At that time, I mean this is like 1969. I mean he was against
the war in Vietnam. He was you know, he was just not a republican.
A: Right, right, right.
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W: And but I kept saying, but you don’t have to chose. It’s a non- partisan election, the
city council. You don’t have to announce you’re a democrat, or republican. Why would
you, why would you do that, you know? So run as a non-partisan independent person.
A: Right.
W: So anyway, the argument went for a while, but he finally decided not to declare
himself a republican fortunately. So.
A: But now if you, when you register to vote, then people would figure out you were.
W: No, but you can register as an independent. (A: Independent, yah) Although as
soon as you go to the primary and pick a ballot, you would become another ballot you ask
for. In other words if you ask for a democratic ballot, then they would change your
registration to democrat.
A: I see. I see.
W: So I don’t know what he did, but I mean you know, he was obviously [unclear]
Robert Kennedy and he knew Jack Kennedy, and those (--) I mean he certainly wasn’t (-) He didn’t exhibit the republican tendencies that his father did.
A: Did he get some, a lot of political ideas from his dad, and advice, or?
W: I don’t, I don’t know. I think they must have argued most of the time.
A: What else do you know about his dad?
W: Well just that I mean I know he had the cleaners. (A: Right) You know Paul used to
deliver clothes in his truck then. His father was a nice guy. He was you know, very
family oriented and everything. I mean what I remember from just being over Paul’s
house, but I sort of remember him being pretty strict too.
A: Yah. Yah.
W: Well I remember one time when I was living in Boston and Paul had come back. He
needed to move some furniture or something, someplace, and he asked me to help him.
He had this Tsongas Cleaner’s delivery truck, which was you know, like the truck where
you stood up to drive it, you know what I’m talking about? You know, in the back (A:
Yah, big box truck) [unclear] all up. Yah. So we put this couch, or whatever the hell it
was in it, and he had to take it to Boston. Going down Route 3 driving this truck standing
up. [Both chuckle] And it probably didn’t go more than 20 miles an hour. Oh man,
we’ll never get through this, but we did somehow. But anyway, so now when I was at
Boston State and I met my future wife there, Gretchen, who was teaching art. So I had
just started to go out with her in ’69 when this campaign came on. And so I said to Paul,
well this girl I know is an artist so maybe she can help with the designing of the bumper
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stickers and all that stuff. So I recruited Gretchen to do that. He wanted a bumper sticker
that looked like Robert Kennedy’s. It was, it was red and blue, but it was a diagonal line
between the red and the blue, and it said, “Kennedy President” on it. So we had Tsongas
on this red and blue thing. She laid it all out. She knew how to set it up and get it to the
printer and all that. And then we decided we should have a banner that went across the, it
was at the intersection of Market and Central, and Prescott. (A: Okay) There was a
building, you know that little triangle, which is now a garden, (A: Yup) there was a
building there, triangular shaped building. And then across the street on the corner of
Central and Market was the Tom McCann building, and my uncle had his Children Shop
Dress, kids clothing store in that building. (A: Okay) But the building was owned by
Bill Kyros, who owned the Epicure at the time. (A: Oh) Epicure was in that building.
So Kyros said to Paul, you can use space upstairs for your campaign headquarters.
A: Is that where you guys had your first place?
W: Yah, we had headquarters, but you know, we never used it. We went up and we
spent time painting it and all this stuff, you know, and we said, look, we didn’t work out
of the headquarters. I’m not sure we even had a phone in there. But there was a hook on
the side of the building, and he made a deal with the guy across the way on the triangular
building, whose name I now cannot remember, but was very, and was a Greek guy, but
he was, he was very big in the, you know, he was the guy that all the Greeks went to for
money.
A: Not John Georges?
W: It might have been John Georges.
A: It wasn’t Vurgaropoulos?
W: No, I think it might have been John Georges.
A: John Georges.
W: Anyway, whoever he was, he owned a lot of buildings and you know. He had a lot
of money. So anyways.
A: I think he actually owns the Epicure at one time as well.
W: Well he might have, but I know that Bill Kyros at the time was the owner. (A: Yah)
So, so anyway, he, we got this arrangement, we were allowed to put a banner from one
building to the other, and I had to go to the city council and get a permit and all of that
stuff.
A: Really.
14
W: Because I said to him, I’ll do all of that stuff you know, you raise the money, because
he, he was going to tap in to the Greek community. And the other thing was, I said to
him, here’s what I know about getting elected. You go up to as many people as you can
and say, “Please vote for me.”
A: And it really works!
W: And it works. So he decided he would go door to door. So Gretchen helped design
this brochure, which is another whole story. I don’t know how much time you got for
this, this is (--)
A: Well we’ll keep going.
W: Paul had been (--) Now Paul was working, he got a job as the assistant, assistant to
Eliot Richardson in the Attorney General’s Office in Boston.
A: How did he get that spot?
W: Probably through Brad Morse and (--) So um (--)
A: Did he maintain contact with Brad after leaving the office for the internship?
W: Yah. So I remember going down there, and somebody else had a (--) No I, I think it
was my camera. Somebody, we had a camera anyway, we were going to take pictures for
the brochure. (A: Umhm) So you know, we get Paul with his phone to his ear. And
Paul you know, writing something. And there was one picture where I’m sitting there,
Paul and some other guy from his office, and the three of us were sort of talking in this
very animated way. You know, there’s a picture of that. And Paul starts writing
something like, on the thing. I’m looking at it, it says [unclear]. [Both laugh] But
anyway, so we had these (--) So Gretchen did the brochure up, you know, with these
pictures. And then, so then we wanted this banner. So we, I went to this place in
Lawrence, Sparley and Cross, to get this big banner, which stretched across the street.
And I needed a big place to lay it out. It must have been 30 or 40 feet long. So I went
over to the fraternity house that I belonged to when I was at Lowell Tech, and this was
the summertime, there was hardly anybody around. They had this basement where they
used to have parties and things. So it was a big long space. And we laid it out, and
Gretchen laid the whole thing out, you know, the name “Tsongas for Council”, and we
painted it in red and blue, and both sides. And then we went to the, we got it hung up and
that was another whole story about finding somebody with a trunk and a bucket, and all
that stuff. And I, I forget, some, there was some other candidate who actually helped us
hang it. I forget who it was now. Anyway, so we got the sign up, and within a week we
had a hurricane, or some goddamn thing. And the paint flakes off and fell into the street.
So we had this bare banner hanging up there. [Laughing] So we had to haul the thing in
and redo it with different paint, and put it back. But it, you know. I think I have a picture
of that someplace, [unclear]. It looked just like his bumper sticker, but it was 40 feet
long. (A: Yah)
15
And I remember going, when Paul first wanted to run I remember going over, I took him
over to meet George O’Meara. (A: Yah) We sat down and you know, and I said to
George (--)
A: And George had never met him before?
W: He seemed to know who he was, but you know, George was aware of those things.
So. He ah, and George said, “Well listen, first of all since I’m helping another guy,”
turned out to be John Mahoney
A: Okay.
W: But he says, he says, “So I can’t do too much publicly, but I’ll give you advice and
see what I can do to help you out if you need help,” you know. So he did. He gave us
advice, and you know, I think there might have been a couple of times when he’d come.
Maybe he’s the one who helped arrange putting the banner up. It was something like
that, you know, he would find somebody to help you with that without you know, without
being out in front of (--)
A: Well he worked for the Telephone Company.
W: Well I know that’s true.
A: He probably had the telephone workers put it up.
W: No, no, no. I forget, to tell you the truth, how it went up, but. So then, so then Paul
started doing his door-to-door stuff, handing out the brochures, you know. I remember
talking about one time he went to some house. The guy actually invited him in, and he
was giving him the brochure. He was reading the brochures, you know, about Yale Law
School and all of this stuff. He said, “You’re really qualified.” And Paul had, he had a
map in his house where he marked off with little pins, or something, every street he had
checked, you know, he had been to. (A: Yah) And before the primary, or by the time of
the primary, he had done all of like South Lowell, because that was around his father’s
store. A lot of people knew him there. (A: Yah) He had done maybe Pawtucketville. I
forget which. There were some, there were like three section of the city he managed to
do, and he came in eleventh out of (--) Of course eighteen were nominated. But in those
days you know, about thirty people were running. (A: Sure. Sure) It was a lot more
activity.
A: Right. Right.
W: And the guy who came in tenth was Jim McMahon, who was trying to move up from
the School Committee. So McMahon came in tenth, and Paul was eleventh. So then he
missed it.
A: And this Jim McMahon was the fellow that ended up running the Training School?
16
W: Yes. Also later on was Assistant Superintendent [unclear] And his daughter was (--)
A: John’s wife.
W: Right. And they lived down the street from us later, although at the time he didn’t.
But anyway, what happened was, in the election (--) But Paul, Paul looked at the map and
he says, “Okay, this is where I have to go,” because obviously all his votes came from the
places where he had gone. (A: Really?) Well not all, but many of them you know. So
clearly the strategy was, go to the places you haven’t been yet. And it worked. So in the
election he came in fifth. Jim McMahon was still tenth. So Jim McMahon decided that
Tsongas is the one who stopped him from getting elected, because he jumped over him.
A: Umhm, umhm.
W: So from that day on he would, he didn’t like Tsongas. So you know the McMahons.
Once, he didn’t like him, then his brothers and his family didn’t like him either. So and it
was a sort of an animosity that sort of built there, which didn’t help a couple of years
later when Paul was County Commissioner and he closed the Training School. [Laughs]
A: This is the world of politics.
W: So ah, yah, so that was the first campaign.
A: Yah. So how would you describe the political situation of the city back in the mid
60s period?
W: The Irish dominated it. (A: yah) As I recall, I mean you’d usually find on the
council it would be like out of nine seats there would be five or six Irishmen, maybe one
French guy, one Polish guy, one Greek guy, you know, that kind of thing.
A: Yah. Although in the ’65 Election (--)
W: The Pick Six.
A: In the ’65 Election (--)
W: I don’t remember ’65. It was all nine. (A: All nine were Irish) [Comment unclear]
But they had a group of them called the Pick Six.
A: That was the ’61 campaign, and the ’63 campaign.
W: Is that what it was?
A: Yah, tell us what you remember about that?
17
W: I just remember the Pick Six were, I forget even who they were? I think Eddie Early
was one of them, no?
A: No, no, he was from the other side.
W: Oh he was.
A: It was Ellen Sampson, Ray Lord, Bart Callery, John Desmond, John Dukeshire I
think. No, no, not John Dukeshire. Whose the garage named after on John Street? (W:
Downes), Joe Downes, Sr.
W: Joe Downes, yes. I remember him. [Unclear]
A: And the most famous of the Pick Sixes was John F. Carney, 21 Blossom Street.
W: Oh yah, right. Oh yah, I remember those.
A: We’ll have to find (--) Supposedly some people have recordings of his radio
broadcasts, which were (--)
W: I remember one line, because Elmer Rynne lived across the street from me. And
Elmer would spend his time down in Kearney Square in front of Brigham’s talking to
anybody who walked by, instead of tending to his store. And Carney, I don’t, never even
knew what it was all about, but he was ranting about Elmer one day and he says, “And
there’s Elmer Rynne down in front of Brigham’s looking like an unmade bed.” [Both
laugh]
A: Oh he had a lot of stuff. He was great. So what else about the political scenario of
that period?
W: Well first of all, like I said, during the mid 60s I wasn’t even here. So I don’t know.
In fact you know, CTI was formed in ’65 I think it was, and I remember coming back, I
was back in Lowell, maybe it was during the summer when the school was out. It might
have been ’67 or 8, and I was down at, I went to this barber shop in Centralville,
[unclear] an Irish guy over there next to the Dom Polski. Anyway he had a radio going,
you know. I’m sitting there waiting for my turn to get a haircut, and there was somebody
on there haranguing about this CTI Group, and who were they anyway, and who did they
think they were?
A: And this is the live broadcast of George Anthas from Holyoke.
W: I don’t know what this was. I don’t even know who it was, but there was just, it was
just a big controversy, you know, and it turns out later I found out most of it had to do
with the fact that CTI had a contract, had been awarded a contract to help organize the
Acre neighborhood for the Model Cities (A: Yup) Program. (A: Yah) And so they sent
community organizers out there, and they were you know, organizing this group called
18
AMNO. (A: Yah) And there were people who didn’t like it the way they did it, or
something. I don’t know. You know, they [led] people on. I don’t know what it was,
but in fact Jack Kirwin, Marie Sweeney’s uncle I guess, or some relation, was one of the
ones who, who really hated CTI for some reasons.
A: Oh really!
W: Yah, he had a lot of animosity toward either, it was either CTI itself, or maybe it was
just Leo Desjarlais, I don’t know, but it was, he had a lot of, there was a tension there.
(A: Yah, yah) And of course Tarsy Poulios was another one. (A: Later on) Yah, who,
who didn’t like us. (A: Sure. Sure) So, but anyway, that’s, that’s a little sidebar, because
I don’t remember, but anyway all I remember is that CTI was another thing. “What the
hell is this?” I had no idea what CTI was at the time.
A: Was there any strong leadership in the city in the late 60s that you know of, or
[unclear]?
W: Well let’s see. Wasn’t Frank Barrett the city manager for a while? He was (--)
A: He was, he was up until 1963.
W: Barrett was, because he had been there for like eleven years, (A: Nine years) or
something. So he, I think he had a pretty strong [team]. (A: Yup) And then who was it?
P. Harold Ready?
A: Desmond was (--)
W: Desmond, yah, he had been the state rep.
A: Yah, and he was the city manager.
W: John? Yah, John Desmond.
A: No, that was his nephew.
W: Connie Desmond.
A: Connie.
W: Connie Desmond. I remember P. Harold Ready, who had been like the city solicitor,
or something.
A: Yup, and then Charlie Gallagher.
W: And then Charlie Gallagher, which was another whole chapter.
19
A: Yah, yah. So maybe not the greatest leaders of all, of all time.
W: I’ll tell you a little story about that. When I came back, when I decided to leave
Boston State, which was [unclear] it was ten years anyway. So I left Boston State, and I
came back here. And I had gotten married. Actually I got married in November ’69. My
mother wasn’t well. So we moved to Lowell to help. So I’m looking for a job. (A:
Yah) And now I’ve decided that (--) I haven’t gone to BU yet, but I decided I didn’t
want to be a chemist anymore. I wanted to be into politics, or government, or something.
So Bobby Kennedy, well that’s another chapter. Bobby, I had helped Bobby with the
Charter Commission thing. (A: Okay) But Bobby says, he says, “I can get you a job in
the Planning Department. Go see Charlie Gallagher and tell him I sent you. You know,
they have an opening for a planner.” (A: Yah) So I went to Charlie Gallagher’s office,
and the interview lasted about thirty seconds. They ushered me in. He says to me, “Your
mother was a Gallagher, wasn’t she?” And I said, “Yes, that’s right.” He says, “You go
see Jack Tavares, he’ll take care of you.” Great. So I go over to see Jack Tavares. He
says, “We don’t have anything for you.” [Laughs]
A: Really.
W: He says, “You have a background in chemistry, we need a planner.” I said, “But I
can write.” You know. And they ended up hiring a guy by the name of Neal Hurley, that
went on to bigger and better things.
A: Yah, yah. No connection to the local Hurleys, right?
W: To the? No, I don’t think so, but I (--)
A: John J. Hurley.
W: I don’t think so, but I just know that he ended up, he had some state job for awhile.
A: Did he? (W: Yah) Yah, yah.
W: So then you know, now I have not job. I know nothing. And so, so Paul says, Paul
says to me, now Paul had been elected now. (A: Yup) And Paul didn’t like to use his
political influence. That sort of tainted him somehow. (A: Yah, yah) But he (--) Oh
yah, that was, that was the issue. He was instrumental in getting Charlie, ah no, Jim
Sullivan in as city manager. (A: Right) And Sullivan comes in, and he says you know,
he’s going to hire some local guy to be his assistant. (A: Yah) So I said to Paul, ‘Oh
that would be great. You know, if I could get that, and that would get me into [unclear].”
“Oh I couldn’t do that Paul said, that would look bad.” Now Howe, Dick Howe was the
other strong (--)
Tape I, side A ends
Tape I, side B begins.
20
A: …as city manager.
W: Right, and Sullivan went back to Cambridge. He took Bobby back down with him.
And now, you know, the rest is history.
A: He’s been down there.
W: And he still lives in Lowell by the way.
A: Yes, yah, yah. So he was Dick Howe’s guy, Bobby Healey?
W: Yah, he had been, Howe had been the mayor, and he was the mayor’s secretary at the
time.
A: Ah, I didn’t know that.
W: Yah. In fact, now when Paul first got elected and the thing was, who’s going to be
mayor?
A: Right. That wasn’t the first term though, that was the second term, right?
W: For?
A: For the big mayor battle between him and Phil Shay?
W: Right. This is the first. When Paul first got elected this was, he got elected in 1969,
and he took office in ’70 I guess. (A: Right) And you know, everyone, “Who’s going to
be mayor?” So Paul’s strategy right off the top was, “I’m not getting in the middle of
this. I’m coming out right off the bat.” He came out like very early. He said, “I’m
voting for Dick Howe.” And that took all of the pressure off. (A: Yah) Whereas
Bobby Kennedy, he got (--) Now is that (--) Did Bobby get elected that time? I think
Bobby didn’t get elected until the next cycle, right?
A: Yah, because I think he was elected for the Charter Commission in ah (--)
W: Yah that’s right. So Bobby, Bobby’s theory was exactly opposite see. Bobby would
sit back, “I want to be the 5th vote, so I’m going to wait to see how this all breaks, and
then I’m going to you know, get something out of the vote.” So. I thought is was
contrast in style.
A: Yah, definitely.
W: Oh, so what I was saying was that (--) So I didn’t get anywhere with Sullivan, but I
did get at least Paul said he would, he would introduce me to Leo Desjarlais, (A: Okay)
because Leo might have something. So I (--)
21
A: And Leo was currently working here at CTI?
W: Yah, we were down on Bridge Street at the time.
A: Oh really. Yah.
W: Corner of Bridge and (--) Well it was 10 Bridge Street [unclear], Bridge and
Merrimack.
A: Yah, that same place where the headquarters had been.
W: Yah, except it was upstairs. CTI was upstairs. So yah, so I went to see Leo, that
Paul had sent me, you know, and stuff. Leo didn’t really have anything at the time, but
he had some kind of a project that he had gotten, because there was a lot of
unemployment in this time. This was ’71, ah ’71 by this time. I’m confused but anyway,
they had gotten, they had a grant where they, they were doing some work in the various
towns. The Labor Department had given them money to hire people like me who were
unemployed. I was actually unemployed for about six months at this point.
A: Really.
W: So they, he hired me as a, it was called an enrollee in this program. It was sort of
like, you were sent to some town, or city to work, do something. So they assigned me the
town of Dracut, and the job was to help them get some federal funds. And in order to get
federal funds from HUD, they needed to have a master plan.
A: Oh yah!
W: So.
A: So you wrote Dracut’s first master plan.
W: So suddenly I’m suppose to be doing the master plan. This I know from nothing, you
know. But I’m learning, you know. So I started doing research and all that stuff, and I
went to Northern Middlesex Area Commission, and Frank Keefe was the planner there.
A: Yah.
W: And we was very helpful. (A: Yah) And George O’Meara worked there. (A:
Right) And I remember we, so we had a meeting in Dracut town hall to, of all the boards
and commissions. The selectmen called this meeting to get all the boards and
commissions so that they would be introduced to me and would work with me in making
this plan. Unfortunately no one on the Board of Selectmen showed up for the meeting.
A: Never mind the board.
22
W: A couple of the board showed up, particularly the Redevelopment Authority, and
they were, you know, they were the ones that had the most interest to getting the plan
done. (A: Right) And ah, but it was like you know, what’s the point, you know. They
didn’t want the plan. They didn’t want anything, you know. And then they had, the
other issue was they were building a police station. No, they wanted a police, they
wanted radios. The Chief of Police had an office about smaller than this room in the
town hall. He had a desk, and a few file cabinets. On top of the file cabinets was a big
speaker, which was tuned to the Lowell Police radio, because he didn’t have radios. And
if he wanted to call one of his three cruisers, he’d have to pick up the phone and call the
Lowell dispatcher and say, “Would you ask cruiser #3 in Dracut to go to” such and such a
street? (A: Really) And then he would listen to hear them make, give the guy, and then
he could hear the guy talking back to them, but if it wasn’t what he wanted he’d have to
call him back. And he had five phones on his desk. And I said to him, “Chief, why do
you need so many phones?” He said, “I never could figure out all of those buttons.”
[Laughing and talking at the same time, can’t comprehend comment] It was something.
So I remember going to, I did some research and found there was some money through
the Federal Highway Transportation Department to get radios and things.
A: Really.
W: So I went down to Boston and met this guy who was in charge of the, you know. He
said, “Where are you from.” I said, ‘Well I’m coming from Dracut.” He says, “Dracut,
where the hell it that?” “It’s just north of Lowell.” “Is that where they have Indians?”
[Both laugh] So anyway they made a deal. He says to me, “You go see so and so, who
sells Motorola radios.” It was a sweetheart deal I think, and he’ll help you with the
specks. So I, the guy, he’s a salesman for Motorola. So he comes up to Dracut and
[unclear]. We’re going to get these radios, and no problem. And it was going to cost
$20,000, but the town had to put up $4,000 to get the $20,000. (A: Umhm) So (--)
A: And those farmers wanted to lynch you, right?
W: So it had to go, it had to go to the town meeting. So now the selectmen at the time,
it was Bob Gallagher, no relation I’m glad to say, (A: Umhm) Bob Campbell and Fred
[unclear]. There were three selectmen at the time. They would have selectmen’s meeting
by the way. The first selectmen’s meeting I went to, there were the three selectmen and
the secretary, and the guy from the Lowell Sun was sitting at this table. And then on the
left you know, there was a good size space and then there were people sitting there. So I
got there at 7:00, and they’re chatting with each other. I’m sitting there waiting for the
meeting to start. 7:30 and they’re still chatting. So I said to the guy next to me, “What
time do you start anyways?” “It’s been going for a half an hour.” [Both laugh] This is
great. Somebody would make a motion, and somebody would second it, and they go to
something else, because they already had two votes out of three. Nothing was done
publicly. You couldn’t hear anything they said.
A: Really.
23
W: I mean I suppose if you, if you sat up close, but it was clearly you were suppose to sit
back here, you know. And then I guess every once in a while they’d call somebody up
and they would go up close to the desk and talk to them. (A: Wow) So I mean, I have no
idea what happened.
A: The $64,000?
W: We go to this town meeting. It’s the hottest night of the year, it’s in July or
something, and the big issue was building an addition to the school, school thing. There
were 700 and something people in the school auditorium. The town moderator, and his
name I think was Paul Mello, first, before they even got to us they had to vote on this
expansion of the school. So of course I was not allowed to vote or anything, I was not
even a resident. So I had to have a pass from the town moderator just to sit in the
audience. So they argued about the school thing back and forth, and then they took a
vote. And the way they took a vote, was people got up off the seat, walked down the isle
and voted, all 700 and something. So, and there was a thunder storm going on outside. It
was just a terrible night. And so they count the votes. 325 for, 325 against. And the
moderator, without skipping a beat, he says, “The vote is tied. I get to vote to break the
tie, I vote no. Next item.”
A: After all of that, right.
W: My wife was with me. I remember saying to her, you know, this guy has got to have
a lot of you know, gall. I mean no matter what he says, half the people in the room are
going to be mad. He didn’t hesitate. There was no question. So then he says, “Okay,
now this issue about the $20,000 [unclear]. So would the ah, you know, someone from
the selectmen here to speak on it? Of course they were there, nobody got up. Well
Chief, would you like to say anything? Well the Chief was almost inarticulate. (A: Yah)
No. So it failed.
A: Oh really. And you weren’t allowed to [unclear].
W: I couldn’t say anything. They wouldn’t allow me to speak. So that was the end of
that. And I remember saying (--)
A: Were you thinking about going back into chemistry at that point?
W: No, but I remember, I remember going back to Leo and I said, you know, “This is
ridiculous. I mean you can’t get anything done.” I had only been out there maybe three
months trying to do whatever it was. So, so then Leo says, “You know what, he says,
why don’t you, I’m going to reassign you in here and you can write proposals for us.” So
that’s how I got started at CTI.
A: I see. I see.
24
W: And by November I had written enough proposals so that I had some money. They
hired me on a regular basis.
A: Yah, yah, interesting.
W: I used to, I used to say you need a visa to get into Dracut. [Unclear]
A: Yah, it’s still like that.
W: And you know, two of those selectmen ended up going to jail.
A: Really, in that [unclear].
W: I don’t even remember what the issue was anymore. But Gallagher, I know he did
time up in Billerica. I can’t remember [unclear].
A: Were they connected to Tully too, those guys?
W: [Unclear] was connected to Tully. He was a state senator then, but he had been a
selectmen [unclear]. (A: Yah) I mean he was, he was definitely the big, you know,
godfather out there. Mike Bletis was the assessor I think. He was a good Tully guy.
Gerry [unclear] was the Fire Chief, he was a pretty good [unclear].
A: How about the Syrian fellow that’s out there?
W: Salem?
A: Salem, Tom Salem?
W: Yah, I don’t remember [unclear]. He wasn’t on the selectmen at the time. [Unclear]
A: No, but I think he was one of the Tully guys.
W: I’ll tell you another story. There was a guy named Maurice McGrath who was the
building inspector out there. I used to sit in the town hall in the selectmen’s office trying,
I would read minutes of meetings and trying to find out what the hell I’m supposed to be
doing. And McGrath would come in and start shooting the bull. So he’s telling me his
life’s story. And he was telling me how he was very big in the VFW out there. In fact he
says, I was this close to becoming the chief, whatever he was. So somebody squealed on
me and told him that I had never been in the service. [Laughs]
A: You’ve got to love Dracut.
W: It was something.
25
A: Now back to Lowell lands. Political groupings at that time when Tsongas was first
on the council?
W: Well let’s see, when Paul first got elected there were five new councilors that year.
A: Oh really.
W: There was Paul, Phil Shea, Tom Mahoney, ah, there were two other new ones.
A: Was Gail Dunfey on at that time. Maybe she came on in ’71.
W: I just remember five new guys got elected that year. And then Sam Pollard was
already there, Howe was there.
A: Maybe Ellen Sampson.
W: Ellen Sampson was there. I can’t remember, but I know that Paul kind of, they
immediately sort of created this 5/4 kind of situation. And Paul, Howe, Mahoney, and I
can’t remember who else was (--) I don’t know if Armand Lemay, if Armand Lemay had
been on there.
A: Yup.
W: Yup, Armand, and I can’t remember who the 5th guy was now, but they, they were
sort of like a block, and then Pollard, and Sampson and I don’t know if it was, I think
Shea was with them. It was sort of like another block.
A: Yah.
W: And that’s when Paul went and got, even though when Charlie Gallagher was the
manager, and Paul didn’t think Charlie really had the technical background. He had been
the city treasurer for years. (A: Yup) And you know when he mentioned Gallagher, I
mean I’m sure he knew my grandfather. My grandfather, Bill Gallagher, ran the Welfare
Department in the city, city hall from 1900 to 1943.
A: Wow, a powerful person in a time of need, huh?
W: Yah, he was one of the founders of the Lowell St. Vincent de Paul [unclear], because
they were always looking for ways to (--)
A: Yah.
W: So it was probably Chuck, because Charlie was in there forever. So he probably
knew him somehow, or known of him. But anyway, I don’t think they’re related like I
said. But anyways, so I know that Paul was thinking that what we need is a professional
26
city manager. And the same time all of this stuff was going on with the Charter
Commission. (A: Yup) And Bobby was pushing for strong mayor.
A: And what were some of the politics behind that?
W: Um, well I think there were a lot of people who liked the idea of a strong mayor,
because they wanted to become the strong mayor. (A: Yah) When the Charter thing,
when Bobby started the Charter thing, and this was in the middle of the campaign in ’69.
A: It was in the middle of the council campaign?
W: Yah, (A: When?) because I was, like I said, I was working with Paul. And at some
point Bobby started, he said he needed to collect some x number of signatures to get this
thing on the ballot, and he had researched all about how he changed the Charter and so
on. And Paul thought it was a good idea to do, to do something. I don’t know if he was
ready to endorse the strong mayor, or anything like that, but he thought, he thought it was
a good idea. And he said to me, maybe you should go and help Bobby, because he said,
you know, this was after the primary and he, he was marching, you know, he knew what
he had to do to win, you know.
A: So he felt comfortable about letting you go in a way?
W: Yah, because we had sort of organized the thing pretty much, you know, and it was
really up to him to. So, because he thought it was a good idea. So I said all right, I’ll go
and work with Bobby. So I started, we had this headquarters down at the bank down here
at the end of Prescott Street, at the end of Market Street.
A: Was it the Union Bank?
W: No.
A: The one that Louie Saab owns, the empty one?
W: Yah.
A: Well that was the Union Bank at that time.
W: Oh it was?
A: Yah, it was one of the branches.
W: Well it was empty at the time.
A: They might have closed it up.
W: Anyway, we used that as our (--)
27
A: How did (--) Bobby got hold of that space? Do you think Homer Bourgeois was
behind the push for the Charter Commission?
W: I have no idea, but I wouldn’t be surprised I guess.
A: Was Bobby and him at all close?
W: You’d have to ask Bobby. I don’t know. Bobby was on what they called the City
Development Authority. (A: Like) It was like a Planning Department.
A: Right. How did he get involved in that, do you know?
W: He was already there when I ran into him. Well I (--) I mean Bobby Kennedy and
my, his mother and my mother were friends from high school.
A: Oh really, yah.
W: So it was like we knew who we were, you know, sort of like, but I didn’t really know
him until this. You know, but then we got really tight for a while [unclear]. He spent all
the time thinking about politics. He’d call me up in the middle of the night, one o’clock,
two o’clock in the morning, “Come downtown, meet me in front of Brigham’s, I want to
talk to you about something.” We had to get in his car and we would talk about it,
[words unclear] listening to him at one o’clock in the morning. I don’t know what the
hell it was.
A: What was his politics? I mean would you call him a Tsongas ally?
W: Yah, he was a Tsongas ally at the time, but you know, I think Bobby was always
Bobby, for Bobby, you know what I mean?
A: Yup. Yes.
W: That’s what he saw. What was good for him was probably good for the city.
A: Yah. [Both chuckle] He ah, he worked for the Gas Company, right?
W: Yah. And he, you know he, he had a lot of good ideas. He’s always had tons of
ideas. He was always coming up with something, you know, some way to advance the
cause, you know. I was impressed with him.
A: Yah, he had a lot of energy.
W: Yah.
A: So tell us about the Charter Commission.
28
W: Yah, so we, we sort of assembled this little band of (--)
A: Let me clarify something. So the, the vote to establish the Charter Commission (--)
W: Happened in the election.
A: In the same election as the city council election of ’69?
W: Yah, and it was worse for that. The nine people who were going to (--) If the
Commission (--) If the vote was yes, then the nine people were going to get elected at the
same time. So you had to be on the ballot.
A: No, didn’t, didn’t they come a year later?
W: No. No.
A: No, it came at the (W: No, they) same time?
W: Yes.
A: So when you were voting (--)
W: If they voted, if they voted yes, then the nine people top vote getters, were the ones
who were on the Commission, and if they voted no, then [they were on the board].
A: Wow.
W: And I ended up running for the Charter Commission. And what happened was, after
it past, the first nine people who got the highest votes had names beginning with A, B, C,
D, E, F, G, H, I, J, and K. And by the time they got to Kennedy and voted the nine, they
had used up their nine votes. So they didn’t get to me, but I got 6500 votes. (A: Really)
I came in, I think I was 10th, or 11th on that one.
A: Really.
W: If my name was you know, [Perot], high on the alphabet I might have had a chance.
(A: Yah) Because nobody had much time to campaign, it was just the name, you know,
I mean whatever name recognition you had.
A: So when did you decide you were going to run, and how did you make that decision?
W: I think I must have decided when we, you know, we thought we were going to collect
enough signatures to get the thing on the ballot. We thought we could get the thing
passed. We did a lot of you know, usually campaign stuff. I designed the bumper
sticker. “Vote yes on” whatever. And then Bobby said, you know, if we get this thing in
29
we got to get, we have to have, we have to have a Commission. So we were trying to get
people (--)
A: And you want like-minded people.
W: Yah.
A: Yah.
W: And you know, all kinds of people came out of the woodwork to run for it.
A: A lot of people ran for that, right? Like 30, 40 people or something?
W: Yah. And like I said, the ones (--) People would (--) It wasn’t everybody who had a
low, you know, high you know, alphabetical name, but it was the most recognizable
names of the first you know. Like Frank Barrett, Dick Barrett, and John Bowers had his
name of this, and Peter Koulouras, and Roland Desmarais.
A: Jimmy Curtis.
W: Curtis, George Eliades.
A: Yah, I was trying to think of all the names.
W: Leo Flynn I think it was? Was Leo Flynn on that [unclear]?
A: Yah.
W: And Kennedy. I mean I don’t know if that’s nine, but that’s (--)
A: Seven, ah, Geary.
W: That’s right, Bill Geary.
A: That’s eight. Is there another French guy? You said Roland Desmarais.
A: Oh Barrett. No, I’ve got them. I’ve got them. Dick Barrett. That’s the 9th. Barrett,
Bowers, Koulouris, Curtis, Desmarais, Eliades, Flynn, Geary, Kennedy, half the alphabet.
W: Yah.
A: If they had put on eleven (--)
W: I might have made it, yah. Well I would have made it. Yah, so. And that, that was
another thing too. I was telling, I was still teaching at Boston State you know, and I was
telling some of the kids in the classroom that I’m running for [this thing]. And one of the
30
students said she wanted to help out. (A: Oh yah) I said, well if you want to stand in
front of the Oakland School and hand out these little cards as people go in, that would be
great, you know. Well that was a big mistake.
A: Why?
W: Well because my intended to be wife said, “What the hell is this?”
A: Who is this lady huh?
W: Well she’s just a student. I mean I didn’t, stupid me, I didn’t, you know, I wasn’t
thinking. God she was quite upset. We hadn’t, we weren’t married yet. We didn’t get
married until November. But it was like, she was very upset about the whole thing.
Anyway.
A: So you gathered with a group of people.
W: Yah, Sue Leggat was one. (A: Okay) Bill Flanagan, who is now at the Housing
Authority. (A: Yah)
A: Lee Kupstis, was she involved?
W: Yah, I think so. I mean Janet of course, Janet, Bobby’s later to be wife, Janet
[unclear].
A: Who was that?
W: Janet [unclear]. (A: Who’s that?) Bobby’s wife, Janet.
A: Oh okay.
W: I think [Fran] Cassidy was one of those people. (A: Okay) I think [Fran] Cassidy.
A: The name sounds very familiar
W: She used to work at the city hall at DPD. She was, she was actually Greek, but she
married an Irishman. You know, those were the (--) We did a lot of door-to-door stuff.
We did you know.
A: Was Bobby the leader of the pack?
W: Oh yah, Bobby ran the whole thing. So. (A: And let it not ) And Mark, Mark
Goldman.
A: Next to the window I hope.
31
W: He wasn’t really that bad in those days.
A: Really, yah, poor guy. No other candidates working with you?
W: I don’t remember any other candidates. Anyway, that’s a long time ago, but I don’t
remember. I remember that group anyway. And then, and then when the Charter
Commission passed and Bobby you know, they got elected and Bobby got himself a
chairman, you know obviously that made a lot of sense. And then I used to attend,
[unclear] and I both attended the meetings, and we would get up and testify on various
issues, you know, and there was sort of like public comment on things. And I remember
when we were talking what big, there was a big issue, strong mayor or not? [Unclear]
And that’s about the time that Paul was saying, you know, I think what we ought to go
for is a professional city manager. And Bobby is you know, wavering back and forth,
and whether we could get five votes. So the compromise was there’d be a strong mayor
with a chief administrative officer under him who would be like the city manager. And
the mayor (--) Because the feeling was you needed some professional managing. (A:
Yah) And that was sort of like a compromise for Paul’s sake, you know? But Paul
basically said, “Screw this, I’m not waiting.” And he went out and found Jim Sullivan
and brought him in and said, “Let’s see what a professional manager can do?” So.
A: Hm. Hm. So was there a lot of debate between Paul, Bobby and you about this
subject?
W: Yah. (A: Yah) So like I said, Bobby’s compromise was we’d have this chief
administrative officer, but when push came to shove and the voted came down, they said,
“Screw that, we don’t want it.” You know, Barrett and Bowers, and Desmarais,
(repeats), I think Leo Flynn, I think Koulouras were the strong mayor guys. They really
wanted a strong mayor.
A: I think they actually had worked almost along ethnic lines.
W: Yah, maybe Koulouras. Koulouras, Eliades (A: Jimmy, Jimmy Curtis) yah, these
guys (A: And George Eliades) yah, they were from city manager, right?
A: Were for the city manager, right?
W: Right, yah. (A: And Koulouras) And I don’t remember which way Koulouras was.
A: And Bobby came out for strong mayor. One, two, three, four, one of these.
W: I know that, I know Desmarais was for strong mayor.
A: Strong mayor, yah. What was his background? Was he an older gentleman?
W: Yah. He had you know. He was one of those people who used to go to city council
meetings from Pawtucketville and talk about everything that came up, you know.
32
A: The Al Hebert of his day?
W: Yah, yah.
A: So no strong political backers for him?
W: I don’t know where his backing came from? I mean for all I know it could have been
you know, the French Connection up there. (A: Yup) I don’t know.
A: Obviously Bill Geary, you know, was part of Eddie Early’s group, right?
W: Right. Well so was Bowers and Barrett were all, they were all connected.
A: Bowers, Barrett, and Bill Geary?
W: Yah, they were all connected.
A: And how about Leo Flynn?
W: I don’t remember. You know I, I’m sort of thinking that Leo Flynn might have been
promoted to city manager. I think Leo (--)
A: He might have been, yah.
W: I don’t remember what. I definitely know Bowers, Barrett, Geary and Desmarais
were definitely from a strong mayor. And then so Bobby was a fifth vote, and that the
rest must have been for the manager. Yah, that’s what it was.
A: And did the election of Jim Sullivan offer anyone (--)
W: Yah, because Sullivan, well you know, Sullivan campaigned against the Charter
thing. Once they came out with a strong mayor, and then they had to go to the ballot in
’71. ’69 was when it passed. So ’71, in that election, and Sullivan had just come in there
probably within a year or so. And he campaigned, and of course the Lowell Sun
campaigned against the strong mayor.
A: Right.
W: And it went down.
A: And what was Paul’s position at that point?
W: I think Paul was at that point for keeping city manager, because he, he felt that
Sullivan was showing that a professional would work.
33
A: So in a way did the personalities prove more powerful than the political ideas?
W: Well I think the Sun was certainly a big factor. (A: Yah) Because I would think that
on the council, if you look at the council in those days, I mean Phil Shea was probably
very strong mayor kind of guy.
A: Yah, yah. Brendan Fleming was the other councilor.
W: Brendan Fleming, how could I forget him? He was my math teacher at the Lowell
Tech.
A: Was he? (W: Yah) Yah, no kidding. And he was in alliance with Paul originally,
huh?
W: Yes. Yah, he was one of the five. You’re right.
A: Now George O’Meara and Sam Pollard, very close. No?
W: No. Yah, I think that must have been (--) I mean there were certainly Kennedy
connections. (A: Right) I don’t remember for sure.
A: When Paul was in opposition to Sam Pollard often, I mean did O’Meara have any
weight with Paul at that point in time?
W: I don’t think so.
A: No.
W: No. Yah, now that you, now that you say that I’m kind of thinking that George
didn’t like that kind of stuff. Yah, but George was always, I mean he wasn’t going to
alienate a lot of people directly anyway, you know, because he (--)
A: He could move with the shifts?
W: Yah, because later on, you know, when Paul was running for Congress and
everything, I mean you know, he could see which way it was breaking so.
A: Yah. Well he signed, I think he signed some of the advertisements for Paul, which I
thought was unique in a way. It goes through your connection like that. I mean that
original inception. Ah, let’s see now, accomplishments of Paul on the council? Were
you active at all with working with Paul while he was on the council for the first term or
two?
W: Well I used to go to all the meetings.
A: Did you? Yah?
34
W: And be sitting in the (--) And John Fleming would be sitting next to me.
A: And whose John Fleming?
W: That’s Brendan’s brother.
A: Okay.
W: Right? And every time Brendan would say anything, John would poke me in the ribs
and say, he’s right you know, he’s right. He’s right you know. [Both laugh]
A: Did you do the same thing when Paul talked?
W: No.
A: Speaking of the council, before I forget, were you there the time that John Kerry
came before the council?
W: I don’t remember.
A: It should have been in ’72.
W: I can’t remember it.
A: Because that was the Vietnam issue and they were going to [unclear].
W: Right, Paul comes out and you know, has a motion to oppose the war in Vietnam.
And everybody is saying, what the hell are you doing, that has nothing to do with the city
council. Obviously he had other fish to fry. So, (A: Yah) you know.
A: Yah, yah. But a taboo political subject in a way to bring on the council floor, right? I
mean like a stick of dynamite, right?
W: Well the thing that I (--) The first few meetings when I watch Paul in the city council,
is when I realized how adept he was in speaking, thinking how to speak. (A: Really) He
was you know, no matter what they threw at him he was really quick to respond. Yah, I
remember thinking that at the time. Boy this guy really knows how to handle, how to
handle himself. Well let’s see, and then of course ’71, that was a long, that was when he
wanted to be Mayor and Shay, he and Shay won like a 105 ballots or something. And
Bobby Kennedy was on the council.
A: Bobby was again the middleman?
35
W: Yah, except that he was the middleman for Helen Sampson. He’s the one that (--)
He engineered Sampson’s election, because they were never going to break the tie for
Paul and, between Paul and Shay.
A: Was Bobby asking Shay and Paul for favors? I mean what was his balancing act?
W: No, I mean Bobby (--) I think what happened was, I can’t remember. I know Paul
had four votes, and Shay had four votes, and Bobby was, because Bobby was voting. He
voted for himself. He voted for, I think Charlie Gallagher was on the council then.
Didn’t Charlie get elected then too?
A: Probably, yah. Was it? No.
W: Yah, because he tried to get Charlie to be Mayor for a while. He was trying to push
Charlie Gallagher [as a compromise candidate]. (A: Yah, might have been) And so he
voted for Charlie, he voted for (--) But nobody voting for Ellen at the time. (A: Yup)
She had already been there once before. (A: Yes) So I, you know, I don’t remember
now who was there, who wasn’t there. I know that Mahoney was only one term. So he
was gone, (A: Right) and I think Charlie Gallagher might have taken his spot. (A: Yah)
Paul was still there.
A: And Armand Lemay might have fell off and I think Gail Dunfey was there.
W: Umhm, you’re right. Yah, Lemay lost once in that. So I don’t remember anymore
how the vote got turned, except that at some point Bobby made you know, broken the
deal and they all voted for Ellen and gave it up.
A: Yah, but whereas Bobby was a good Tsongas ally, how come he didn’t just vote for
Paul?
W: Good question. You’ll have to ask him.
A: What was Paul’s reaction to that? Did he ever say anything?
W: Well I think Paul was pretty disappointed, because he you know, he saw himself, he
wanted to be Mayor so that he could go on to the next level I guess. And I know that he
wanted to be a Congressman, but he was smart enough not to run in ’72 when everybody
and his brother was running. (A: Yah) And I don’t think he had any connection with
Kerry necessarily. (A: No) I just think he was (--) He just knew when to run and not to
run. And he could see that it wasn’t the time to run. So instead he ran for County
Commissioner, (A: Yah) and as a reformer. And of course there must have been ten guys
who ran the democratic primaries.
A: For the County Commissioner?
W: No, no, for the primaries.
36
A: Oh for, yah, for Congress.
W: Sheehy and Kennedy, and [DeFucher] from Lawrence, and Kerry of course, and I
don’t know, quite a few more.
A: Maybe John Desmond.
W: Yah, I mean I don’t even remember. There were so many actually, you know, it’s no
wonder that Kerry could win, you know.
A: Well I think what happened in that election is that the city guys ripped each other
apart, and Kerry was able to clean up on the blurbs enough to gather the nomination.
W: But you would have thought like DeFucher was from Lawrence, and George Eliades
was helping him because he was a Lawrence School classmate or something, he knew
from (--)
A: Young George?
W: Yah, young George.
A: Now was George helpful to Paul in any of the campaigns?
W: Oh yah, raised money.
A: Did the bulk of Paul’s initial fund raising come from the Greek Community that first
time?
W: Oh yah, absolutely. (A: Yah) Yah, but again I mean he raised his own money. It
wasn’t my job, which I was glad of. I never liked that part of it anyway. So you know,
he, he did that. My job was to you know, organized the troops, and get the bumper
stickers out, and the pamphlets you know, whatever, all that kind of stuff.
A: How about the second election? Where was the headquarters?
W: I think he just kept, he just used his house.
A: Did you help him as much in that election?
W: I didn’t. No, I didn’t do the same. Well I helped him. I don’t, you know, I wasn’t
like the campaign, I think he was his own campaign manager by that time. He knew
what he wanted to do. And we didn’t have the same kind of organizational issues to
work on. I guess [I was some help to the campaign]. I was also trying to get the Charter
thing passed because, not because I wanted to see a strong mayor, which I didn’t like
37
necessarily, but it was like he invested all of this time you know, I wanted to see
something happen.
A: How about when Paul was on the council there was a big vote for the Lowell
Connector Extension?
W: Yes, extension connection, or what later became.
A: Later became, yah.
W: Well yah, but the ones (--) They wanted to run the thing through South Lowell, right?
A: Right, through the south end. Do you remember that vote and issues attending to
that?
W: Um, I just remember that they were going to take the thing down around past
Gorham Street down, it was going to come in Kearney Square somewhere. (A: Right) It
was going to end up taking a lot of houses. (A: Right) There was a lot of controversy,
but I don’t remember how it (--) I just (--) And I know that the final compromise was to
come down this way.
A: Right. Right. Well Paul actually voted for it, but it lost at that point, (G: Right) and I
was wondering if he had ever talked about that issue with (--)
W: I’m sure he talked about it, but I don’t remember. [Unclear].
A: How did Paul’s vision differ from other politicians from that time period, if at all?
W: Well I think there were a lot, a lot of people on the council were, I mean not that
people wanted to see Lowell just wallow in the doldrums like they had been doing, but I
don’t think they had any thoughts about how to do it, (A: Umhm) anything different, but
he was always looking for ways to make it better and coming out of its economic
doldrums.
A: Yah, yah.
W: And Bobby was too, except in a different kind of way. (A: Yah, yah) So you
know, I think that it, you know, his thought was, well if you get a more professional
administration, if we do more you know, with planning and all of that stuff, but he, he
was like, there wasn’t enough of him, enough on his side you know. Like Howe for
example, Howe was a straight shooter, which is why Paul liked him. In fact he and
Howe, he actually set up a law practice [in the Hildreth Building].
A: Right, right, right.
38
W: But Howe was like the negative guy who sat back and said, “No, no, no, why are you
doing that? This is bad.” You know, he never, Howe didn’t change his tune really until
he became Mayor the second time, back when, 1980 or something, [unclear]. (A: Yah)
So I mean I don’t think Paul had enough support on the council, and I think he got
frustrated with that too. That’s why he moved on to the next thing. Plus you know, the
County Commissioner thing helped him widen his base. He walked across the county
and all that stuff.
A: Same [unclear] area pretty much. So if he’d win that he could win the congressional
seat.
W: Yah. And then of course Kerry lost the election to Cronin. And so in ’74 when you
know, Cronin was going, was running for the election, Paul basically called all of those
other guys and said, you know, I want to run this time, will you stay out basically?
A: Then he got the commitment from everyone?
W: Yah, because, partly because they didn’t think it was as easy to build, to beat an
incumbent as it was when the seat was opened. So, and I guess they had gone on to other
things.
A: Yah. And plus (--)
W: In fact like Paul Sheehy became city manager in [unclear] of ’74.
A: Correct. Right.
W: I don’t know the timing, whether it was before or after the election. I forget how,
when that was, but he was city manager for awhile. So.
A: And he was probably the strongest candidate, right?
W: Right. Right. And so anyway, so Paul basically had the field to himself. And even
though it’s harder to feed an incumbent, he was only a, he was a very recent incumbent.
And the other problems that Cronin had was, because he was a Nixon supporter. Nixon
had self-destructed by ’74. And so that [unclear].
A: Yah, timing was everything.
W: Yah, Paul just knew what he was doing, you know? So.
A: Did you help on that campaign?
W: I did, but I, I (--) Um, what was going on in [’76?]. That’s when my daughter was
born. I was probably (--)
39
A: Who was running his campaign by that time?
W: Well when he ran for Congress think Dennis Kanin started [unclear].
A: Okay. How about for the County Commissioner one?
W: County Commissioner? I don’t think (--) Leo Desjarlais [unclear], and so was Jim
Sullivan.
A: Jim Sullivan, really. Yah.
W: I don’t remember. I didn’t do it. And then I was (--) I was involved in all of his
campaigns, but not, I wasn’t like (--) You know, and like I said to him in the very
beginning, all I know is don’t ask as many people as you can on welfare. That’s all I
know about getting elected. So he already knew what I’d do.
A: Another person around town, Homer Bourgeois, whom we’ve talked about.
W: Yah, I didn’t have much connection at all. I mean I, I just knew who he was. He
was a big money man though. [Unclear]
A: Yah, any stories about him that you heard? What was Paul’s relationship with him?
W: I don’t think it was (--) I don’t know.
A: No real connection through the father, or anything?
W: I don’t remember that. I’m sure he had dealings with him, but I don’t know what
they were, or I can’t remember them. I do remember when Paul decided to run for
Congress, he went over to see Clemie Costello.
A: He did?
W: Well maybe he was summoned, I don’t know, but he had an interview with Clemie
Costello. And Clemie said something like, “Well why do you, why do you want to do,
run and all that?” So he said, “Well you know, I don’t see how the republicans have
helped the city. And he said, have you looked at, he said, take my father for example,
was he republican, you know? He worked hard all of his life, and yet he had a heart
attack. He had to give up the store, [unclear] you know. So he lost, you know, he lost a
lot of money out of that deal, you know? And there’s no, no way that under the
republican administration he was going to get any help,” you know, [unclear]. And
Clemie just should have worked hard. That was his problem with him, he didn’t work
hard enough. That poor guy toiled his life away on this.
A: Yah, sweat shop huh?
40
W: Paul was so furious about that comment.
A: And that was Clem. Okay, how are we doing?
W: I’m doing okay. How are you doing?
A: All right. I’m going great. Let’s move into the Center City Committee.
W: Oh yes.
A: Which again Bobby had his hands into.
W: He certainly did.
A: And did Paul help in that form as well?
W: Well let’s see. The genesis of the Center City Committee was the New England
Regional Commission, which was like the Appalachian Commission, you know. And the
Regional Commission was made up of six New England Governors, and they had federal
money for economic development issues. And so they decided that they would name a
city in each state, and call it the Center City, and deal with you know. So they pick a city
that needed help. So Massachusetts, it was Lowell.
A: How did that get selected?
W: I think Jim Sullivan had something to do with it, but I’m not sure exactly what the
process was. I believe the city had to apply and make a case for themselves [unclear].
And Sullivan was you know, and Bobby Kennedy was involved. So now Bobby may
have, you know, he might have heard about it and he heard Sullivan to do whatever. So,
so they got the grant. It was like $400,000.
Tape I, side B ends
Tape II, side A begins
A: … with the appointment of a blue ribbon committee.
W: Yah, and this was (--) So this was 1972. So I think at that point Paul had already
gone on to the County Commission.
A: Okay.
W: And Bobby was on the council. (A: Yah) So Bobby was a city councilor on the
commission, on the committee. And then it was all of the agencies, like the Housing
Authority, Armand Mercier was there. (A: Oh yah) The, and CTI had a seat on it, (A:
41
Okay) which is, Leo sent me because he didn’t want to be bothered, which was fine with
me because I wanted to do it.
A: Yah?
W: The Labor Council had a seat. His name was John Mullin. A guy named John
Mullin,
A: John Mullin, yah, a good friend of mine.
W: And the Chamber of Commerce. I don’t know, Model Cities. Northern Middlesex,
is what they called themselves at the time, something else.
A: Northern Middlesex Area Commission, NMAC.
W: Yah, that’s what it was. [Unclear].
A: Joe Hannon.
W: Yah, except that he sent a guy named Kirk Short.
A: He died a few years ago, a photographer?
W: Yah. No, wait a minute. You know what? It was, Keefe was there first.
A: Oh he was, yah.
W: Keefe was there, because he was on the board from the Northern Middlesex Area
Commission. The city planner’s name was Don Wagner. So he was on it. Jack Tavares
was on it for Model Cities, and so was Pat Mogan.
A: Yah. Now did Mogan have a hand in this creation of the Center City?
W: I don’t (--) See I don’t know. I just know that he (--) Bobby got it created
somehow, and then they asked Leo to be on it. And he said to me, “Do you want to go up
and do it?” I said, “Yes.” So that’s where I came into the picture. So I’m not sure who
was really, who actually created it? I know Bobby was instrumental. I don’t know who
else.
A: Maybe Mogan, or maybe even Peter Stamas helped to write the grant, or something.
W: No, I think what happened was, Mogan (--) Actually I’m not (--) Yah, Mogan was
on it, Jack Tavares, a guy name Bill McInerney. He was a realtor of some kind. I think
he might have been representing the Chamber. There must have been a dozen or so
people on it. And so they, they had this $400,000 and they said well, how are we going
to spend it? So they, we created, they created this committee called the Action
42
Subcommittee. (A: Okay) Their job was, there were five of us and their job was to
come up with ways to spend the money basically. And there was Keefe, and there was
all the planning kind of people. Now I was a planner for CTI. There’s me, and there’s
Keefe and there was Don Wagner and Mogan, and somebody else.
A: Jack Tavares?
W: No it wasn’t Jack, it was somebody. Anyway there was five. And so we (--) And
then, but Mogan was, you know, he was pushing the idea of the Urban National Park,
except that wasn’t what he called it at the time.
A: Urban Cultural Park, or something like that?
W: Yah, whatever, you know. So, so he proposed, he asked for $40,000 to do planning
for the park. And so we gave it to him. What the hell. He made a good point, you know,
good presentation.
A: Was this the first time you had heard of that idea?
W: Yah. And then we did some money for a tax title program. So we get some stuff that
was on the tax [unclear] that was not producing anything.
A: Like the Locks and Canals, and Louie Saab.
W: Yah, that was, that was fun. And let’s see, what else did we do? We did some, we
did the first beautification of downtown with the brick sidewalks and the benches and the
trees.
A: Really.
W: And so what happened was that (--) So they allocated the 400 grand and they did
some things, and the next year we got another 400 grand. So we created a program called
Industrial Renewal Program, and they hired Dennis Coffey to run that out of DPD. It
wasn’t DPD. It was CDA, and then it became [unclear].
A: Yah, CDA.
W: And I forget all the things we did. We did, you know, it was a lot of money. We did
various things that seemed to be useful at the time. I forget them all. We had a
transportation program to help people get to jobs outside of Lowell.
A: Oh really!
W: Because their jobs were down on 128. So we did something where we were taking
people and transporting them down to the jobs, [unclear]. I forget what else we did, but.
Now meanwhile Frank Keefe had become city planner in Lowell. And that’s when Kirk
43
Short came in, and he was such [unclear]. I know there were some other development
issues. We came out for certain buildings being fixed up. And Armand, I remember
Armand was involved in that somehow. So after (--) So that was ’73. ’73, so now come
’74 there was no money left. (A: Yah) So we bail out. The big guys bail out. Bobby
was [unclear], that’s it.
A: Money is gone.
W: Brendan Fleming came on the board as a city council representative. And they asked
me to be chairman because I don’t know, I had the biggest mouth or something. I don’t
know why I did it. But it was like you know, all, nobody thought there was anything big
going to come out of it anymore. So they you know, it’s time for the next layer down to
take over. (A: Right. Right) So we (--) One of the things though we did, we had some
money that hadn’t been allocated, and Frank, well maybe we got a little, maybe we got
some money. We got some [unclear], but it wasn’t as much, but Frank decided we
should do an economic development study. And we spent a whole year on that. And we
came up with a really I thought, pretty good plan that dealt with transportation issues, and
industrial things, and all kinds of stuff. But I mean I was surprised at the time to realize
how much went into economic development besides jobs, you know. And I thought that
was a pretty useful thing that came out of it. And then meanwhile we had about $50,000
left that hadn’t been allocated to anything. And we were starting the Lowell Museum.
(A: Okay) We meaning, the Historical Society was under the Lowell Museum, Pat
Mogan was involved, Gordon Markham, do you remember Gordon Markham?
A: Yah, he worked with Pat closely, right?
W: Right, and they had gotten a grant from someplace, National Endowment, or
someplace, to plan this museum. It got to the point where they needed to create the
museum, and the Historical Society didn’t want the responsibility in dealing with it and
raising the money. (A: Yah) So they created a separate board of directors, and spun it
off. And so they came to us, to the Center City Committee and said, “Would you put
money into it,” you know. So I thought that was a good idea. And actually they asked
me to come on the board. They made me treasurer.
A: Oh really.
W: Thinking I was bringing $50,000 with me, but the rest of the board didn’t want to do
that.
A: The rest of the Center City board?
W: Right. (A: Yah) And meanwhile Paul had been, you know, he got elected to
Congress. He was on the banking committee. His plan was he went to the bank, and he
went to Duncan and the other bankers and said, “I want to form this consortium of
banks.” It became the LDFC. And they had a meeting of all eleven banks. And Paul said
to me, “You know this is the first time some of these guys ever talked to each other.”
44
They didn’t even know each other, presidents of the banks, they never talked to each
other.
A: Somebody was telling me a story about they got a lot of the banks together, but there
was one bank or something that didn’t fall in line. Do you know that story?
W: Yah, I don’t remember which one it was. I think it was Washington. I don’t
remember. It wasn’t [unclear] banks.
A: Was it the Union Bank?
W: No, the Union was involved. (A: Yah) Homer wasn’t there at that time.
A: No he wasn’t, no.
W: The guy that was running it was Leo Mullin.
A: Leo Mullin from State Street originally.
W: Yah, I guess State Street bought Union by that time?
A: Yah.
W: So they formed the LDFC, and we said, okay, we’ll put our 50 grand into the LDFC.
A: Oh.
W: Now the biggest bank, they went by their deposits in Lowell. The biggest bank
contribution was Central Savings, $55,000. (A: Um) And Union was probably $50,000.
And the other banks were only $30.000 you know, like, and then the smaller banks were
like $10,000. So Center City comes in with $50,000. We had almost as much money as
the biggest bank there. So after the first meeting I got elected secretary.
A: Of the LDFC?
W: Of the LDFC.
A: And had Paul asked you from Center City Committee to put in some money for this
[unclear].
W: Yah. This guy was named Patrick [unclear]. He was like this economic
development guy at the time. (A: Okay) And Patrick was sort of going to the banks and
organizing it. I remember meeting, I think it was in Pollard’s Restaurant, which was one
of the newer, you know, renovated places. Meeting with Patrick and some other people
form Paul’s staff and we talked about what the role of the Center City Committee would
45
be. And they wrote a role in their for the Center City Committee to be the approver of
the building design.
A: Really.
W: So in other words when the people came in and said, okay, I want to fix up this
building, you know, in order to make it tie in with of course the Park wasn’t there yet, but
tie in with the idea of the Park, they wanted to make sure it was historical, or whatever.
So they gave the role to the Center City Committee. It’s in the legislation.
A: And so who was on the Center City Committee by that point? These people you were
just mentioning?
W: Let’s see. John Mullin died.
A: No, he’s still alive.
W: No.
A: Yah, he’s still alive.
W: Oh no, I’m sorry. I got it backwards. He went off the committee, and then the labor
guy was Ed Bellegarde, (A: Okay) whose Tom Bellegarde’s father. (A: Okay) And he
died [unclear]. I got confused. I knew the labor guy died. (A: Yah) So Bellegarde was
there representing labor. There was a Chamber guy that was (--) I probably have this
information somewhere. [Unclear]. But Keefe had gone on to become the state planner
under Dukakis.
A: Yah. So but you were the real leader of the pack by that time?
W: Yah! So what happened was, this was like ’75 or so. Taupier was the city manager
by this time. (A: Yah) And he brought in those guys, the outside guys, Jerry Hayes and
[Dick Lemoine]. Jerry Hayes was like running the DPD or whatever they called it at the
time. So they said the city cannot buy stock in the LDFC, because the city can’t own
stock even though the stock was not real stock because it was a nonprofit. It was very
confusing for everybody, what the hell it was. But they said the only way that Center
City Committee can do this is if they incorporate as a separate entity. (A: Okay)
Because at that point we were an advisory committee on the city council and the
manager. (A: Oh really) That was the way the thing was set up. So, so we said, okay,
we’ll incorporate. And Brendan Fleming went ballistic. He thought that this was a city
function, and the city should control it, and he doesn’t like nonprofit. He didn’t like non,
not nonprofits, but separate entities. (A: Sure) He didn’t like that. (A: Sure) So he put
a motion into city council to abolish the Center City Committee, which passed nine to
nothing.
A: Really?
46
W: Yah. Taupier called me up and said, “Somebody doesn’t like you.” [Both laugh]
A: Just put you right out of business.
W: Yah. So we determined what, what the motion really was, was that it abolished the
Center City as an official advisory committee to the city council, that’s basically what,
what we did.
A: But that didn’t stop you from going.
W: That didn’t stop us from incorporating. And so Taupier said he would help us, and
we, Jerry Hayes was the guy he assigned to it. And he basically wrote by-laws and he got
us you know, he helped us with whatever how we had to do to become a non-profit
corporation. And, and then so there we were. We were a non-profit corporation. We
had $50,000 worth of stock in the LDFC, and I was the representative to the LDFC, or I
became the clerk or whatever. And the Center City Committee actually didn’t do very
much. That was what? ’75,’76. We didn’t do very much for probably five or six years.
(A: Okay) We sort of, in our reorganization we cut ourselves down to like seven people.
And the seats were like CTI, Northern Middlesex Commission, the City Planning
Department, the City Manager actually was a member. (A: Really) The City Manager,
the Mayor, I don’t know, there was like five, you know. I think (--) No, it must have
been later that we added the Park Superintendent, because the Park wasn’t there yet.
A: Right. Right.
W: But anyway there was like seven people on the (--) Maybe, maybe Armand was still
on, and he was like the Housing Authority. Whatever. So we didn’t do anything.
Technically we should have had an annual meeting, and you know.
A: You didn’t even do that?
W: No, we didn’t even do that, but you know. So. LDFC had an annual meeting, I think
it must have been around ‘83 or something. Whenever Brendan Fleming was the Mayor.
When was Brendan the Mayor?
A: I think ’83, ’84 probably.
W: Brendan’s the Mayor, okay. So he’s on by [unclear] factor, whatever you call it, he
was on the LDFC Board, because the Mayor was on the Board. So we have the annual
meeting and it was in the Commonwealth House. It was the newly renovated
Commonwealth House. For some reason the President, who was Duncan I guess (--)
A: Of the LDFC?
47
W: Of the LDFC, the Vice President and the Treasurer were not available. So it fell to
me to run this annual meeting, which was very fun for me anyway, but (--) And people
are going, “Oh, are you sure you’re okay?” Oh it didn’t bother me to run the meeting,
you know. So anyway, so I’m running the meeting and we had the vote, and we elected
the board, and we elected the executive committee like we always did, and we always do.
And we, we had a report somebody had given. The meeting is over. Brendan Fleming
comes up to me and he says, “I thought you guys were out of business.” [Both laugh]
A: He thought he was governor, not a city councilor. I voted to put you out of existence
nine years ago!
W: So he started asking the Secretary of State, you know, what is the story with these
guys. And the Secretary of State says, “Well we don’t know. They haven’t filed a
report.”
A: Oh nice, nice.
W: So the LDFC got worried because it’s one of their stockholders, right? So the LDFC
lawyer, her name was [Paula Popio?]. Yah, Jim [Popio], he’s a very big wheel in a
Boston law circles. That’s his daughter anyway. Paula Popio was the lawyer for the
LDFC. So she calls me up and says you guys have to do a, b, c, and d in order to get
back. And so that we filed all of these forms from nine years back. We had to have a
special meeting and voted to approve everyone of them. Oh man it was awful!
A: Who came up with the idea for the LDFC?
W: Paul.
A: He did? And who did he work closely with to put that together?
W: Duncan.
A: Duncan who understood the financial side involved, yah.
W: Yah, if you want, I mean Duncan is the one to talk to about that.
A: Yah. So in regards to the National Park and kind of that side of the world, really the
only role of Center City Committee was to give that one, a grant to Mogan to do his
thing?
W: Well I mean that was, that was the first. Yah, we did that, but we, we supported the
Park. I mean we had lots of discussions in the Center City Committee about how to help
the Park move forward, and what to do. (A: Ah huh) And we must have given more
money towards it someplace, but I don’t remember the details. (A: Okay) But I
remember saying at one time, I mean the committee was a pretty broad representation of
all the agencies in the city. It really wasn’t people so much as agencies, you know.
48
There was a lot of support for the Park, and I remember saying, “The reason that this has
so much support is because everybody at that table could see some way they could
benefit from this thing.” Somehow there was something for everybody, and they all were
willing to work together and make it happen.
A: From the people in the Acre that wanted to preserve their neighborhood, or their
history, to (--)
W: Yah, but everybody, everyone could see somehow there was going to be something
good out of this, you know?
A: Yah, yah.
W: And I remember, I had this discussion with Pat one time about, he wouldn’t pin
himself down as to what it was. He was like, he kept it purposely vague because he
didn’t want to say it’s this, and then have somebody say, “We don’t fund that, you know?
So it was everything you could think of that somebody might put money into, you know.
A: Yah, yah.
W: And I remember, now I went to BU in ’71 and’72, and I graduated in ’73. And Bob
Malavich and I commuted together. We went, took all the same classes so we’d have the
same schedule, so we could commute to get our Masters Degree in Urban Affairs. So I
remember in one of those classes we were talking about the National Park and what, I
mean not the National Park, the Urban Cultural, whatever the hell it was. (A: Yah) And,
and they were asking us, you know, what is this, what is it you know? And I’m trying to
explain it, and I couldn’t really explain it either, you know. I mean I sort of knew what it
was, but I couldn’t. I remember saying to Pat, you know, and this is like, so two years
have gone by and we’re still trying to figure out what the hell the thing was. I said to
him, “You know, if I can’t, if somebody like me who supposedly knows what it’s all
about can’t explain it, what the hell is it?” [Laughs]
A: So that was Pat too, right?
W: Yah, because he was afraid that if he said, “It’s education,” then they wouldn’t fund
it for economic reasons. Or if he said it was economic, then he wouldn’t get cultural, or
whatever the hell it was. He was afraid that it was going to infringe on his ability to raise
money for himself. So it sort of evolved by itself into something.
A: Yah. Now his connection with Sam Pollard through marriage, did that impact his
relationship with Paul?
W: I don’t think so. I think, you know, I think Pat was a man of ideas. I think Pat and
Paul were very similar in many ways in terms of seeing the big picture. And then, I mean
Paul was a lot better at getting things actually done.
49
A: Yah.
W: And Pat relied on Peter Stamas and some of those other people who actually did the
work. (A: Yah, yah) You know.
A: And Pat had the ideas and somebody else executed them.
W: Yah, Pat had lots of ideas. He had so many ideas he couldn’t, you know. [Both
laugh] I remember he stopped me in the street one time out by the Pawtucket Gate House
over here.
A: Moody Street Feeder.
W: Whatever the hell it was. And we started talking, and we were there for like an hour
and a half. He was telling, he was telling me all of this, whatever the hell it was. I don’t
remember all of it. And you know, if you wanted to do anything about them, you know,
you’d get back to your office and tried to figure out what the hell was that? I should have
written this down, or taped it, or something. But it was like just a million ideas.
A: Yah, yah.
W: But he was, I mean people could (--) The advantage of it was that people could see
something out of it that they could do, and they would do it.
A: Yah. Well obviously there was some economic reasons to push the National Park.
W: Well let’s see now. In the beginning when Pat brought up the idea I think Brad
Morse was still in Congress. So Morse tried to push it ahead. And then Cronin didn’t get
very far either to tell you the truth. I think it was still at the, it was (--)
A: Well actually, actually they got some money for a study at the last minute.
W: Yah, but it was, it was at the very development stage and people didn’t really know
what it was. By the time Paul got in there, I think Paul sort of decided, okay, it’s going to
be economic development. (A: Really? And) And he knew he could sell that. (A: Yup)
Because I remember I went down to Washington and testified on the bill.
A: You did? Tell us about that experience.
W: Well it was kind of interesting, except I don’t remember a lot about what I said,
except I remember the opening line was, “About five years ago if people asked you what
to do about downtown Lowell, the answer would be drop a bomb and start over.”
[Laughs]
A: And that’s what you said? Yah.
50
W: But now you know. Anyway I, I just, I know that Paul sold it as an economic
development thing. That’s the way it worked. (A: Now) And then of course then it
became, and then it got tied in with the Park Service, which was another undesirable.
A: Right.
W: And maybe Pat had thought about that, but I don’t think that was sort of like the plan
for a long, you know, for a long time until (--) (A: Really) Because Pat’s heart is
education. I mean the whole thing came out of the educational component of Model
Cities.
A: But Pat also was you know, I mean very interested in the economic side with helping
the Locks and Canals, and Eldred Field.
W: Well that meeting I told you about, we were standing in front of the Moody Street
Gate there, or whatever, and he was telling me how you could use the Locks and Canals
to teach engineering. You know, and you could use different parts of things in the city to
teach various other subjects, math, science, whatever. But that was, and people could
write you know, journals about working in the mills, and this would be you know, writing
skills. And a lot of that came out in the Magnet School thing.
A: Magnet School, and then the Tsongas Center. Now Pat, was it Pat that had the idea to
do a monorail through the city?
W: Yes. [Laughs]
A: What did you folks think about that?
W: We thought it wasn’t going to work too well.
A: Do you remember, was Paul in favor of that?
W: I don’t remember that either. I think it would, it would have taken too much away
from the historic character. (A: Yah) Although I do remember, now that you mention it,
early on when Paul as first funning for city council, and one of the issues about the canal
came up at the time, and this was way before the National Park ever came, on historic
preservation, Paul actually suggested that they drain the canals and use it for bus routes.
[Both chuckle]
A: Next stop! Climb through that hole and you come up through the sewer. [Both
laugh] You’ll be right on Market Street.
W: But you know, when they created the Park and then they created the Historic
Preservation Commission, and the LDFC was involved because we were trying to get the
buildings fixed up so that they would look, you know, fit the Park even though they
weren’t part of the Park. And at the same time in the museum, the Lowell Museum, you
51
know we created that exhibit, the mill girl’s bedroom and the kitchen from 1920s, and
what other, other things.
A: Now was part of the museum’s goal not only to preserve local history, and have it be
a showcase for local folks, but also to promote the idea of the park, of a national park,
and what a park could look like?
W: We did that. In fact when Paul would bring up visiting Congressmen to try to sell the
Park Bill, I mean that was the only place you could go to see any of that stuff. We had
the exhibit space in the Wannalancit Mill, and we had the machinery, the old looms and
things from Lowell Tech, which I thought was really (--) Because when I was a grad
student at Lowell Tech, my office, my um, the lab I worked in was underneath one of
these buildings. And then you had to walk through this long corridor filled with all of
these textiles machines that were not used anymore.
A: Really.
W: To another set of labs where the other grad students (--) We used to walk back and
forth. At night you know, it was kind of eerie in these buildings. They weren’t very well
lit. I just remember this big loom, there was a jacquard loom and they had, they were
weaving something, and they stopped and never finished it. It was some kind of a banner
or something. It was like that for years just sitting there as you walked by it. Anyway, so
all of this equipment was there, and you know, the exhibit of the mill girl’s bedroom and
all that stuff. So we used that to show off (A: What could be) what could be, yah. And
then when the Park, when legislation passed, Lou Albert was the first superintendent. He
came to us and said, “We need this entity, he called it a cooperative association that most
Parks had. It turns out that it was like a place to raise money so the superintendent could
have his own little fund and he didn’t have to spend federal money for things that he
couldn’t spend it on, you know, [unclear] and whatever.
A: Yah, yah.
W: So they wanted us to do these cooperative associations. And the deal was that they
would take over the maintenance of the, of the historic stuff we had and the, and the
running of the museum, but really somehow exist in a different capacity. And I was the
president by then of the Museum [unclear]. (A: You were) This was 1979 or 80. (A:
Yah) So I’m the one who signed the agreement with the Park Service. And then they
moved us over here.
A: To Market Street. In fact, is the sign still up?
W: Yah, I think it says, it still says the Lowell Museum.
A: The Lowell Museum Store.
52
W: Yah, because that’s what we, we decided we would sell things in the store. And the
publications, Louie Karabatsos was the Director. We were publishing Lowell, you know,
pamphlets and things and we would sell them there. And they took over, they just took
control of all of the machinery and equipment. Of course then they closed that and put
them all in the Boott Mill.
A: So do you remember when you first heard that the National Park had been passed in
Washington in ’78?
W: Yah.
A: Do you remember where you were, or who told you, or any of that?
W: No.
A: And what, did you have any further role with the National Park as it grew over that
time through either Museum or the LDFC, or?
W: Well we had, we had this arrangement with the Superintendent, you know. While
Lou Albert was around we had a very good working relationship with him. And then he
left, and I forget who came in after him?
A: Was it John Burch? Burchill?
W: Yah, John Burchill, right? Burchill. Yah, we did okay with him, but he wasn’t, he
didn’t have the same interests. I mean Lou Albert was really into it.
A: Was he? Yah.
W: Because he was starting, you know? (A: Yah, yah) I think Burchill was sort of like
[unclear]. I think Sandy Walters was very, she was good to work with.
A: Yah, yah, and she had a lot of energy, right?
W: And so she came on the Center City Committee, and we were very, she was active on
that. And after she left, who was it? It wasn’t Rambur at first, it was somebody else first
off. (A: I forget, yah) It was somebody that was sort of a nothing. Rambur was great. I
thought Rambur was very good.
A: Really, yah.
W: Pat McQuary was hard. He didn’t care.
A: Yah, now that he’s gone, he was very good to me and I support him for that. He gave
a lot of lip service, and his health hasn’t been great either. So he never, I don’t think he
came to his full, full potential here, which is unfortunate.
53
W: What I noticed about, Lou Albert, he comes in and he says basically, “I’m the federal
government and I’m taking over,” you know, and people had to jump. (A: Really?) You
know.
A: So there was a change, huh?
W: Yah, and I think that, yah, he demanded a certain amount of deference to him.
Burchill, like I said, was more of a caretaker to me anyway. Sandy was very you know,
because that was the time of the Folk Festival starting, and all of that stuff. I mean she
was very tied in with everything going on. I thought that she was very (--)
A: More community oriented.
W: Yah. And Rambur too. I found, I saw Rambur that way.
A: Yah. And I think Pat was as well. I mean I think he (--)
W: Yah, well I don’t know. Pat seemed to think that his main job was to work with the
city manager, and not with anybody else.
A: Well I think that one of his faults was that, not that he worked with the city manager
closely, but that I’m not sure if he ever called any of the favors in before he left.
W: Yah, but don’t you (--) I don’t know, I have a feeling that by the time Pat was
leaving, then it was like the Park Service was not the major player that it used to be. I
mean part of it was budgetary, I know that, but, but he just didn’t play a strong role in the
community the way the others have.
A: Yah. Well I mean I personally look at myself though as certainly being a guy that I
feel, you know, hit the ground running, and Pat allowed that, you know, the Mogan
Center to flourish in the last three years.
W: Well, you know, I don’t know too much about the internal workings since he was
there, but I’m just thinking in terms of within the community.
A: And don’t forget, this is a National Park Service Oral History Project, so we have to
be nice to those guys.
W: I better be careful of what I say.
A: And they pay me thank you.
W: Pat was a great guy. No really, he was a nice guy. (A: No, he was a really good
guy) I have no problem at all with that. I just think in terms of connecting with the
community, I didn’t see it quite as much as the others.
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A: What other issues about the State Heritage Park, National Park, do you remember
from the days leading up to those?
W: Well I know that State Heritage Park was an idea that Frank Keefe came up with
while he was working for Dukakis.
A: But wasn’t Mogan behind that as well?
W: Probably. I don’t, I just, I know it from Frank’s point of view, because he tried to
not, it wasn’t just Lowell. It was (--)
A: Lawrence, and other places.
W: Lawrence, Lynn, several of other places around the state.
A: Yah.
W: I mean he saw, he was trying to replicate what was going on in Lowell. But the state,
you know, I mean Dukakis was willing to put money into it, but once he left it was really
too bad, because we needed it. We needed the (--)
A: You know this plaza over here, you know, Mack Plaza, is owned by the state, and
they really don’t do much with it. I mean we could give you another ten examples, which
is unfortunate. Why do you think the city moved from Urban Renewal to Historic
Preservation from the 60s into the 70s?
W: Well I think Pat was the one responsible for that, because you could see that it didn’t
work on Lawrence. You know, Lawrence went total Urban Renewal. They tore down
their downtown. They built new buildings, and nobody came. And it was just a disaster.
And we were lucky that we never got our act together in time to pull the (--) They did
tear down of course the Merrimack Mills, (A: Yes) and maybe a couple of other (--)
A: The row houses.
W: Oh man, I remember that big fight, because I was a senior in high school. That was
’59, and I used to park over there around the row houses that went all the way down
Dutton Street to the end. (A: Right) And there was a big you know, controversy about
taking them down. And Clemie Costello wrote editorials about saving them.
A: He did? Really he wanted them saved?
W: Yah. Lydia Howard, remember Lydia Howard?
A: Woodbury’s wife?
55
W: She was very active in that. You know, she later came on the Museum Board and
raised a lot of money for Lowell.
A: Oh she did.
W: Yah. She was a very (--)
A: Was your brother involved in any of the historic districts, or been on boards back
then?
W: He was on the Human Service Corporation (A: Okay) when Pat formed it. (A: Yah)
You know, from UMass Lowell. He was on it for a long time, but I don’t remember,
other than you know, he still appears in the Center City Committee once in awhile. He
hasn’t done much. I know he was active earlier though.
A: Yah, yah. Other personalities, Gordon Marker?
W: Yah.
A: What do you know about him?
W: He was a republican.
A: He was a republican? Was he really?
W: He was a Brad Morse guy.
A: Did he work for Brad?
W: Yah.
A: He did.
W: Yah.
A: I didn’t know that. What did he do for Brad?
W: I don’t know.
A: But he was one of his aids?
W: Yah.
A: Where did he come from?
W: I don’t know, was it Lexington, or? Something like that.
56
A: Really.
W: But he, then he was, he was very active with Cronin.
A: He was in support of Cronin? And when Paul ran against Cronin, where was Gordon
Marker?
W: Probably with Cronin.
A: Really. So you guys didn’t have any warm and fuzzy relationship with Gordon?
W: No. Of course then he married Mary Costello. (A: Yup) [Unclear].
A: And so then he worked with Pat Mogan.
W: Yah, he worked with, he was the one that actually wrote the proposal for the museum
I believe.
A: For the museum.
W: Yah.
A: Was he the one that wrote the proposal for the seed money from the Center City
Committee?
W: Probably was. I mean it was about that time he was working with Pat on those
things. (A: Yah) He was very chummy with Eldred Field, and the Locks and Canals
guys.
A: Yah, tell us about them and that relationship.
W: Um, all I remember about that was, I remember being in Jim Sullivan’s office. It
probably had to do with Center City Committee, where we were discussing the Locks and
Canals and there, they didn’t seem to be interested in helping. Locks and Canals at the
time had mortgaged a lot of their, had a mortgage with the Teamsters Union (A: Yes)
Pension Fund. (A: Yes I heard this) We used to joke that if they drained the Locks, the
Canals they’d probably find Jimmy Hoffer down there someplace. But they were very
hard to deal with. I remember Sullivan complaining vividly about dealing with those
guys.
A: With Eldred Field?
W: Yah. I mean they wouldn’t give in on anything. They owned the canals, the owned
the water, they owned the rights to everything, and they just didn’t want to (--) I think
they were, you know, they were trying to find a way to probably save them, you know,
57
get some money out of it. (A: Yah) And it took a long time to get an agreement
between the Locks and the city and the state, as to who would control what. And even
today, you know, my understanding from Marshall Field is, there’s like nine entities that
can have something to say about if you want to use the canals, somebody owns the
surface, somebody owns the walls, somebody owns the water, somebody owns the air
rights. It’s like you can’t do anything. Jack Tavares told me a story one time about the
Locks and Canals guys. This goes back in the 50s when they were doing Little Canada.
(A: Yah) North, what did they call it, North Canal Apartments.
A: Northern Canals, right.
W: They had some equipment, bulldozers, or backhoes, or something, all over the place,
they were you know, clearing the land. (A: Yah) And they, they parked their stuff too
close to the canal for some reason, that the Locks and Canals got upset about it. They
called, and Jack somehow was involved in it. I forget, because he worked at DPD. I
don’t know exactly what his job was, but he (--)
A: Right.
W: They called him up and they said, you know, get those things off today, because you
know. And he says, well you know, I can’t get a hold of the contractor. Okay! They
flood the canals, flood the machinery.
A: Did they really!
W: Yes, and they just you know, let water through the system and okay, you want to
move them now? [Both laugh]
A: You might need a tow truck. Now Mogan kept close with Eldred as well?
W: I don’t know.
A: What other stories do you know about Locks and Canals?
W: That’s about (--) I just remember that.
A: Did Paul have many dealings with them to try to get them?
W: I think he did. I don’t know, I don’t know what finally caused the (--) You know,
what ever the, they finally had an arrangement where they you know, they gave up some
control. Of course that might have been around (--) Well when did they do the Boott
Hydro? How long? That was probably much later.
A: Late 80s probably. Mid 80s maybe?
58
W: When I was on the Industrial Finance Authority, Industrial Development Finance
Authority, that was another think Bobby Kennedy and I did.
A: Well before we go away from the Locks and Canals, I think Bobby Kennedy told me
that he had put in the motion about seizing the Locks and Canals at one point?
W: Yah, he probably did. It didn’t go anywhere though.
A: No, but that was part of the city effort to get them more compliant.
W: Anyway, when they, when he decided to create (--) He got them to create the
Industrial Development Finance Authority, which I think was 1972.
A: And how did that differ from what the City Development Authority was doing with
their Industrial Development Commission?
W: The Industrial Development Financing Authority was allowed to sell what they
called revenue bonds, (A: Okay) to raise money. The revenue bonds had interest rates of
(--) Well they sold these revenue bonds to raise money to do a project. And as far as the
borrower was concerned, he was paying about 70% of prime to get this money. So that’s
what the deal was, plus it was the strength of the company that made the bonds work. It
wasn’t a state or a city bond, it was based on the company who was building the building
with it. So, so the idea was created and they had, I forget how many were on, maybe five
people on the board.
A: Were you put on at first?
W: Yah, so Bobby asked me if I wanted to be on it. He wanted somebody, he wanted
one of his people on there, you know. And there was a guy named Gladstone, Al
Gladstone, who was the Chairman, who was sort of a real estate guy.
A: Yah, who else was on it?
W: I think Billy Flanagan was on it.
A: Billy being one of Bobby’s guys?
W: Bobby’s guys, yah. [Unclear]. Peter Markham was on it at one time.
A: Oh really!
W: There was a problem because we would try to have meetings and of course the least
bit of snow outside, he wouldn’t come down. He was a little old lady. He just couldn’t, I
can’t go out, it’s snowing. [Unclear] I’ll come and get you. Oh I can’t go out. Put
somebody else on. But anyways we, we did nothing for many years. (A: Really) Yah.
59
A: You couldn’t get it off the ground, or?
W: It wasn’t up to me. It was Gladstone, didn’t care. I mean I don’t know why he
wanted to be, but he was the chairman. So after several years of no activities, and I
complained to Bobby. And so a switch was made. Gladstone was gone and I became the
chairman. And then we started selling bonds.
A: So Bobby, when he created it, didn’t have a very specific purpose in mind?
W: No, he just saw it as a good economic development tool, which it was, but (--)
A: Yah, but it was never used.
W: And part of it may have been the economy too, wasn’t ready for them. I don’t know.
I just know that we didn’t do anything, and we didn’t do anything.
A: Yah.
W: What’s the point of it, you know
A: So in what year did it get going?
W: I don’t remember, but it probably was mid 70s, ’76 somewhere. You know I think, I
think it was after the LDFC. So maybe it was 1974. I forget, but we started doing
projects. And for example the Zayre’s Plaza up there, (A: Yah) Tom Koulakos came to
us and said, George Generakos, they wanted to buy the thing, and they were going to site
their store there (--)
A: LOMEDCO?
W: LOMEDCO. Remember there was a supermarket there, the A&P or something?
A: Stop and Shop.
W: Stop and Shop, and Zayre’s and a couple of other things up there. So they used the
revenue bonds to buy the place and fix it up.
A: They did?
W: That was one of the deals. The stuff (--) Do you know where Goodwill is up out on
Middlesex Street? (A: Yup) We did that one.
A: Was that a new building they built?
W: Yah, it wasn’t Goodwill. It was Alexander’s Supermarket.
60
A: Oh, what did they build that for, their warehouse?
W: I think they built it to rent it out for, as you know, [unclear].
A: I see. I see.
W: That was a funny one too, because Bobby Gordon, who was the head of at the time,
Alexander’s, was a second cousin of mine.
A: Oh really!
W: Yah, on my father’s side. But not that it meant anything. He wouldn’t give me the
time of day for Christ sakes.
A: You weren’t in his will?
W: No. Although he did hire me. When I was in college, that was another job I had.
During semester breaks I used to work at Alexander’s in the produce department in the
basement. Go in there at 8:00 in the morning and come out at 9:00 at night.
A: At Middlesex Street?
W: Never see, never see the light of day.
Tape II, side A ends.
Tape II, side B begins.
W: I told my brother [unclear], we had to stay in stock, because we had no choice
because we were family. And the other people had to volunteer [unclear]. And he didn’t
get extra money, but you know, I don’t remember I worked like overtime or anything.
But anyway, so we did several projects.
A: Is that, is that Authority still in existence?
W: I think it is. I think Billy Flanagan is the chairman of it. He has been for a while, or
had been.
A: Really? They haven’t done anything with it?
W: But the thing is, I think the reason it doesn’t do much anymore is because you can get
cheaper money, and you know, I think the banks, they don’t want, they don’t want (--) To
sell the bonds was very complicated. You needed a bond council and all kinds of (--)
There was, there was some fees associated with doing it that was kind of (--)
61
A: Yah, it might have been novel for the time, but (--)
W: Well there are better mechanisms now than that. Although, in fact the successor to it
in its place is called the EDIC, Economic Development Investment Corp, or something
like that.
A: On the local level?
W: Well I mean that was, this is a state thing. The state allowed these things to be
created. Than the city, the locality has to vote to do it, but it’s regulated by the state in
terms of how you issue the bonds and all that stuff.
A: Yah.
W: So anyway, we did a few, we did a few that made you know, I thought that we really
got some (--) I was on that thing for like nine years.
A: Yah, yah. What other (--)
W: What I was going to say about it was that there was only one law firm in Lowell that
would do all of the work, the bond work and everything. That was Eldred Field’s law
firm.
A: Oh really? [W: That’s what (unclear)] They were the only ones that had the capacity
to do it?
W: Well they, you know, they learned the ropes. Dick Drury actually was the lawyer
who actually figured it all out. So we used to go up to his office to do the closings.
A: Yah, yah. I heard he was a gifted lawyer.
W: Dick Drury, he was a nice guy. He used to live down the street from me on
Fairmount Street.
A: Any children around?
W: I don’t know if he had kids. I don’t know.
A: Any other dealings with Eldred when you would go in there?
W: Eldred used to ah, he knew my father (A: Did he, yah) as a lawyer, you know. He
was very suave [unclear]. He was just [unxious?].
A: Huh? [W: Unxious]. [Unxious?], yah.
W: You know what I mean?
62
A: Any interesting stories about him?
W: He seemed like a nice enough guy. It’s just that his reputation was he was a son-ofa-gun to deal with, you know. Now Marshall, who I went to school with actually, you
know, he’s a little different.
A: Yah, I would say so. Um, 1978, a banner year for Lowell. You got the National Park
coming in. You got Wang coming in. What did you think of that if you can recall from
that period? Paul selected to the Senate.
W: Yah. Well it was a good year! In ’79 when the UDAG thing came along, and
Taupier was the manager, right? (A: Yah) And he wanted to help Wang in any way he
could. And he went to the LDFC and he said, “You have to amend the Charter so that
you can give money to Wang out (--) The Charter said, “Downtown Lowell.” And he
said (--) So I talked, Tully was the state senator I guess at the time. That’s who I talked
to, the state senator. The legislation was already passed. We remanded the Charter. We
said, “Wait a minute. Don’t we have anything to say about this?” “No!”
A: How was Tully to deal with over the years?
W: Well let me just tell you the quick story about Taupier. (A: Sure) I mean, so then
we had, we had this agreement. We had to have this agreement between the city, the
LDFC, and Wang. And the Wang lawyer, his name was Ed [Gracen], and Taupier
teamed up on us basically. I mean Taupier was really basically saying, whatever Wang
wants I’m going to give it to him. And the LDFC is trying to protect their interest as best
they can, you know. And it was like a steamroller, you know? They really (--) It worked
out fine in the end, but you know.
A: Right, but you never know.
W: We went through the ringer basically, you know.
A: Who else was on the LDFC early on?
W: Well Duncan was the president, and (--)
A: And then it was reps from each one of the banks?
W: Yah, so Leo Mullen was on, and Gerry Wallace, who was a real good guy.
A: Any non-bank people on there besides you?
W: Yah, a guy named Roger Trottier.
A: Who’s that?
63
W: He had an insurance agency up on Merrimack Street.
A: And was he, just got some money together or something?
W: Actually no.
A: Bought shares?
W: No. In the original board I think it was seven people, and four had to be bankers, and
three were like community people. So I was a community person, Roger, and I forget
who the third one is off hand. It might have been, it might have been somebody, I forget.
I’m sorry.
A: That’s all right.
W: It’s along time ago.
A: A lot of (--)
W: But there were three non-bankers and four bankers at that time. (A: I see) And then
they, every time they increase the size of the executive committee, then they went to nine,
and now they’re up at eleven, the would you know (--)
A: They increased the number of bankers [unclear].
W: The bankers always have the have the majority. So there has to be now six bankers
out of eleven. (A: I see) So that there’s two other non-bankers on it. So.
A: So who’s on it right now that’s from the non-bank besides you? There’s five people?
W: There’s me, Peter Aucella, and [Von Ross], Mary Noon.
A: Mary Noon?
W: Yah.
A: Paul, Paul Marion’s (--)
W: Mother-in-law.
A: Mother-in-law.
W: But she’s on there from the Merrimack Valley Housing Partnership.
A: Oh, but they don’t have like a seat?
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W: Yah.
A: The Merrimack Valley Partnership has a seat?
W: Oh, I see what you mean. No.
A: She’s just a community person?
W: Well I mean first of all there’s a board of directors, there’s like forty something
people, you know, which there’s sort of wide community participating, but then there’s
the executive committee that actually runs it. And the executive committee, as I say, has
the six bankers and the five non-bankers. And I think they asked Mary because they
were looking for some you know, a lot of representation. They wanted a woman, another
women on the board. They have several women on there now. I can’t remember who the
other person was. [Randy], Milinazzo, [Dick Cauley]. Oh, the other, the other nonbanker was the city manager technically.
A: Oh, does he show up for meetings?
W: The only city manager that came to meetings faithfully was Brian Martin. Cox came
the first few times. Then we got in a big fight with him about that money, the
development fund that they said belonged to the city even though it was clearly said that
it belonged to us.
A: And he hasn’t been back since?
W: But he sends Matt Coggins.
A: Oh okay.
W: Traditional it’s been a DPD person. Bob Malavich was on there for a long time.
A: Yah, yah.
W: And then, you know, so like I said, the only time that we really had a city manager
actually show (--) I don’t (--) Dick Johnson came a few times, but Brian was very
active.
A: Stories about Joe Tully?
W: Joe Tully, when, when the ah, CTI used to have this grant called, we had a grant for a
Skill Center. (A: Yah) It was over on Perry Street. Those yellow mill buildings on Perry
Street.
A: 125 Perry Street, where the CMAA eventually was?
65
W: Yah. The grant came from the labor department, director of CTI. Okay. So that was
like 1968 or 9. So at some point the, when they formed CETA, the money went through
CETA, but still came to us. Then they called it something else. JPTA, or something, I
don’t know. Job Training, something. The city formed their own entity, right, which is
now the [unclear], but at the time I forget what they called it. It was something else like
the [unclear], I don’t know what it was. And so the city now was in charge of this
money. And they decided, first they decided they weren’t going to fund the skill center
anymore, they were going to run it themselves, because they had, they were getting cut.
That was probably around the time that Reagan came in office. They decided to cut
things. They said, “Well we can’t support our staff unless we you now, take this away
from CTI. So they took (--) So we also had money for the Neighborhood Youth Corps.
(A: Umhm) A guy named Chris Eliopoulos ran the Youth Corps for us. He was a
character himself. And the Youth Corps was teenagers 13, 14, 15 year-old kids were
getting summer jobs to do work in the community, and we hired college kids who were
like councilors. So the city now is controlling the money. So Joe Tully calls Leo and
says, “I want you to hire,” or he called Chris Eliopoulos, he said, I want you to hire so
and so, who’s the son of some city councilor who was sixteen. So Chris says to him,
“We can’t hire him, he’s too young.” So Tully, he wouldn’t take that as an answer. So
he calls Leo and he says, “You’ve got to hire this kid,” you know. And Leo says, “I
can’t,” or “I won’t.” Tully was furious. Phone calls back and forth.
A: Is this when he was city manager?
W: Yah. Yah, he was city manager. So Eliopoulos disappears. Leo goes on vacation.
Tully calls over here and I’m the one who answers the phone, you know. I don’t know. I
wasn’t going to put the kid on. Leo said no. So they took it away. No Youth Corps.
They just stopped. They said, “Okay, we’ll run the Youth Corps.”
A: Yah, yah.
W: That’s the way, that’s the way he operated, you know? You don’t do what I say, I’ll
take it over.
A: How was Leo to work for?
W: Well in the early days he was pretty good. I mean he did a lot. I mean he certainly
built this agency up over the years. He was very good at getting grants, and playing the
political games. And you know, I think he had the right attitude and everything, but you
know, it’s like he was here too long, you know. And then, well he probably started in the
mid 80s. He you know, he started going through a divorce, and (--)
A: Yah. Was he seeing another gal, or something?
W: All the time. He had lots of them. And you know, he just got to the point where he,
he wasn’t around, he would do whatever he, self-gratification you know. Whatever he
66
wanted he was going to get, you know, and he had this little expense account. (A: Yah)
You know, nobody, it wasn’t even on the books.
A: Really. He pulled a little money from a grant or two, and create a fund, or?
W: Well it wasn’t from grant money. He couldn’t do that. It was, it was locals funds
that were (--) So he, but I mean he’s the only one who controlled it. I mean nobody saw
it. Nobody knew what he did with it.
A: Yah, yah.
W: And at that point he got very hard to work for, because he, he wouldn’t, he wasn’t
going to, he wasn’t leaned in. And then the board didn’t have any control over him, or
didn’t want to. I mean they were all of his friends. You know, he sort of, the board was
self-perpetuating. (A: Really, yah) You know, so he could put his friends on there.
Nobody was going to question him.
A: Really. Did you see instances, as you were working with him, where you said, this is
trouble?
W: Well I mean first of all in terms of the way he dealt with people, you know, he got to
be very autocratic, (A: Did he?) very hard to work for.
A: Really. And had you?
W: And then he would, he would go off. He would take a vacation for weeks. So I
would be here running the place, you know. We’d come back, and to make sure that he
was a boss, he would say, “Why did you do that? I’m changing that”, you know.
Countermanding order, whatever. Even if it was the right thing to do, I mean he, you
know, he just had to show he was in charge.
A: Now had you been friends with him close early on in the early part, like in the 60s
and early 70s?
W: Well like I said, I started here in ’71. I wouldn’t say that I was close friends, but I
mean he was the boss, and I, I mean I did okay here, you know, in terms of moving up
the ladder and all of that. So. And he gave me, actually gave me a lot of freedom to do
things. I mean like all of this work on the Center City Committee, and all of these other
things. I mean he basically said he didn’t want to deal with that stuff. So.
A: And you were doing a lot of that stuff on the CTI clock, right, for the community?
W: Yah, basically. Yah. So. You know, but like I said, he got, he got really out of
control, you know. And then in the end we find out what he was doing with the money,
you know, he was buying jewelry and gifts for his girlfriend, and furniture, and I don’t
know, what all. It mean it was just all (--)
67
A: I heard he was giving money to candidates as well?
W: Well that’s what, that’s what got him, you know, because he thought, even though
people here told him it was against the law, you couldn’t give, you can’t give agency
money to a candidate. It had to be a personal donation, right? So he was writing a check
to Joe Kennedy for example, running for Congress, or whatever it was, and then he would
reimburse himself out of his account, which you can’t do.
A: Right. Right.
W: But the, somehow he, he said the CPA told him it was okay. The CPA actually did
say it was okay.
A: Really.
W: [Bernie] Cavanaugh, Anstis and Cavanaugh at the time, (A: Oh really) but then
Anstis parted ways with Cavanaugh, which is (--)
A: On that issue, or other things?
W: Well I don’t know, I just think on separate issues, but it was Cavanaugh, at the time it
was Cavanaugh and Company all by himself. And it was just (--) So at one point for
example, and now here’s one thing, Leo would, he would use a credit card. He had an
agency credit card, right? So he’d buy stuff. And when the bill came in it went to him.
When the bill came in he would take off the thing that said what was bought, and just the
front page said, okay, you owe $300.00 this month, or whatever. And then you would
give some poor little bookkeeper in the fiscal office this bill and say, pay it out of this
account.
A: And it was jewelry for the lady?
W: Nobody knew what it was, okay?
A: Yah, yah.
W: So the bookkeeping person said to her boss, who was the fiscal director at the time,
you know, I don’t know what this is for, but it’s a lot more every month than it used to
be. And you know, I don’t know what’s, what’s going on. So she came to me and said,
“What should we do?” I said, “Let’s talk to the auditor, the CPA, and see what he says.”
So we talked to Bernie Cavanaugh, and Bernie said, “I will, I will talk to Leo and look at
the stuff and see if it’s really business related.” So he did that. He gets back to us and
says, “I’ve looked at all of the slips and they’re all business related. It’s okay to pay
them.” So the fiscal office person said, “Would you put that in writing?” And he did.
We had a memo from him. (A: Really) I will periodically review these expenses and
make sure they’re business related. So what are we supposed to do?
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A: Yup. Yup.
W: So meanwhile then he’s got this, this problem with donating to candidates.
A: Who were some of the candidates that he donated to?
W: Well I know Joe Kennedy. Joe [DiNucci], and I don’t know, probably Dukakis.
Who knows?
A: Was Paul still in politics at that time? (W: No) This was later on.
W: This was like late 80s. Paul had already left then.
A: The Senate?
W: So what happened was, there was a guy here who was our purchasing agent, who
was kind of a [unclear]. Leo never liked him, but he was you know, he did a good job.
So we, we cut (--) There was a point where we had some budget cuts and we had to save
some money. And he says, “I’m going to lay this guy off.” So he laid him off. The guy
was from Dracut, all right. So about three or four months later he shows up as a Dracut
representative to the board of directors. So he’s on the board of directors and he says to
Leo, “I understand that you’ve been getting reimbursed for political contributions. Is that
right?” And he says, “Oh yah, the auditor said we should do that.” And the board said,
other people on the board are saying, “Oh yah, you got to play the game, you know, you
got to (--)” And nobody was saying that you shouldn’t make donations to political
candidates. They didn’t understand what we’re saying here was we shouldn’t, it was
illegal to the agency.
A: To the agency, right.
W: So this guy calls the state auditor. The auditor descends on the place, starts looking
at these transactions. They find that problem.
A: Umhm.
W: So Leo starts, you know, looking around for a lawyer and he finds, somebody
suggested that he talk to this Cheryl Cronin who was, who had written the Campaign
Finance Law in Massachusetts. She worked for the Attorney General, but at this point
she was on her own. So, so she comes in and she was trying to figure out, she looks at
the whole thing and she says you know, it really was a minor thing. It wasn’t a lot of
money. I think it was like $5,000 they identified you know, over the years. And so she
worked it out where he would, they would pay a fine, or he would pay a fine. Slapped in
on the wrist and don’t you know, don’t do this again.
A: Yah, and put the money back and whatever. Yah.
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W: So he thought he got out of it basically. So meanwhile the auditor starts looking at
this, this account. Well there were no records, because he didn’t give anybody records,
but they subpoenaed the credit card records. And then they saw what he was spending it
on. And then, then they showed the lawyer that. And she looked at that, and she says,
“You know, I’m working for the board here.” So she went to the board and she says,
“Look at this. And they fired him obviously, terminated him.”
A: Who was the guy from Dracut?
W: Frank Sheridan. He was on the Finance Committee out there for years. So that was
his demise.
A: Yah, yah. And is that when Jim came in?
W: Yah. Well actually Leo was fired in August of ’91, and Tom Conway, who was the
Chairman of Selectmen in Billerica at the time, was President of the Board here, Tom
stepped off the board and became acting director while they searched for somebody. And
they didn’t hire [Cannon?] until November of ’92. So it was a long time before they had
(--) Because Tom was like, I mean he, he didn’t even know much about running the
agency. He was a telephone worker.
A: So again much of the responsibility fell on you.
W: Yah, I spend all this time, I had to sit in the office and listen to stories about Billerica
most of the time. I tried to get things done.
A: Now who ran CTI originally, when it was formed in ‘65?
W: John Mahoney.
A: Oh that’s right, you said that.
W: Yah, he still works here now.
A: He does?
W: Well not still. He works here now. John, John was the first director. He was
running the Neighborhood Youth Corps, which was a city program at that time. And
then when the legislation came along to create agencies like this, and they created the
agency, Ellen Sampson, who was the mayor, was like the first president, or something.
And they hired Mahoney to run, to run this. And the only, I think the only program there
was Neighborhood Youth Corps, and then they got Headstart.
A: That was a much, much, much, much smaller agency.
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W: So that was ’65, and they hired Leo in ’66. Leo had been working for the state
helping set up agencies like this all over the state.
A: Oh really! Was he from Lowell?
W: No, he was from Bellingham.
A: Bellingham.
W: He was a Chub Peabody guy. (A: Okay) And Peabody was Governor what, ‘62
to’64. When Peabody left office he had created The Commonwealth Service Corps,
which was like a state version of the Peace Corps.
A: Oh yah.
W: And he appointed Leo to run it. It was like you know, I’m working out the door, you
know, I’ll give you this job. So Leo was working in the Commonwealth Service Corps,
and they were giving the job to set up agencies like this all over. That was their job.
A: I see. I see.
W: So he had his pick of all of these agencies he was setting up, you know? He was
looking at Framingham. He thought that would be a good place to work. And he went to
some conference in Connecticut, where you know, all of the [unclear]. Because the
regional office used to be in New York at the time. It was all federal. And so Mahoney
was there, and, and along with Colonel [unclear], who was his fiscal director. Former Air
Force guy. And so they’re at this conference. They meet Leo, and Leo is talking, he
seems to know what he’s talking about in terms of community action. So they started
recruiting him, because they new they had this position. And he decided he would take
the assistant director in Lowell over the director in Framingham, because Lowell had a
lot more potential for getting property grants, because we were in worse shape than
Framingham. So he took the job. And almost from the beginning he sort of took over.
You know, he was really running the thing. And then Mahoney left in ’68 to become the
Regional Director of the Welfare Department, working out of Lawrence.
A: Oh really.
W: And he ran for city council and won. (A: Right) But then he, he was a one-termer
because he failed to vote for some nurses raises or something, public nurses, public health
nurses [unclear].
A: Oh really. There were two guys that got one term right and got booted out?
W: And he was one of them. And he ran again a few times. He came in. He never did
better than tenth after that.
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A: Oh really!
W: He says the city workers killed him, because he just, he voted against his contract
thinking he was doing the right thing, you know. (A: Yah, yah) So he had a whole
career with the Welfare Department. And near the end of his career he was working in
the homeless shelter area. He was like the field rep. He used to be our rep for our
shelters.
A: Really.
W: And then he retired. And you know, he came by and he said he could use a little job,
a little part-time job. So we hired him for some stuff.
A: Where does he live now?
W: He’s in North Andover I think. And now he’s running, he’s supervising our two
shelters. But I’ll tell you another quick story about Mahoney. (A: Yah) In ’92 when
Paul ran for president, John and I would go up to Nashua and Manchester and do door to
door, (A: Really) and all that stuff. (A: Yah, yah.) That’s a funny story. John always,
he was very casual in those days. He would wear a sweatshirt, Celtics sweatshirt and a
Celtics’ hat. And we were going door to door and handing out brochures, and we ring the
bell on this one door. The guy answers the thing and there’s John with the Celtics
[unclear], and the guy turned around and says to his wife, “Honey, Larry Byrd is here and
he wants you to vote for Paul Tsongas.” John’s about this high for Christ sakes.
A: He’s like 5’1”, or something, right?
W: Well he’s not that short, but I mean you know, Larry Byrd is 6’9”.
A: So did Paul ask you to help on the presidential campaign, or you just you know?
W: I just volunteered, but I mean yah. So after we won in New Hampshire, they had to
suddenly go national, you know? And so John and I volunteered to go to Washington
State.
A: Really.
W: And there were three or four people of the group, they went out to Washington, and
plus some people out there that they, I don’t know how they found them.
A: Yah. Any of the Lowell people go up?
W: No, not many of the Lowell people were there. I remember people who had
connections to Lowell.
A: How long did you stay out there for?
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W: We were there for, we were only like ten days. I mean that’s, the caucus, there was a
caucus. It was like the next thing, you know. Some people went to Minnesota,
somebody went to Baltimore. I don’t know, people went all over the place. So we went
out, out there. And John’s nephew, who was sort of, had sort of become the major
[unclear] in the New Hampshire campaign. He wasn’t running it, but he was sort of like
the guy behind the scenes who did all the work. You know, I mean he works for
Panagiotakos. I can’t think of his name all of a sudden.
A: D. J. Corcoran?
W: D. J., yah, D. J. Corcoran. That’s John’s nephew.
A: Oh it is? Really?
W: So, so we go out to Washington and there were ten of us actually somehow in this
group. And so we were based in Seattle, but two people went to Spokane, two people
went here. So John and I were signed to Tacoma. Organize the caucus and get the vote
out, you know. So we got down to Tacoma, and they gave us the name of this Mexican
insurance agent. I forget his name, but, and then there was a union guy who was
American, you know, [unclear] union guys.
A: And these were the democratic people.
W: This was the democratic machine in Tacoma [both laugh]. So we find the place. We
had to rent a car. We find the place way out in the outskirts of Tacoma to this guy’s
insurance company and we go in there. And the guy says, “All right, here’s what we’re
going to do. We will have people at the caucus who will be told you know, they’re going
to vote for Paul Tsongas and you know. So, and the union guy is saying you know, we’ll
have guys here and there. There were caucus all over the town, you know. So you had, it
wasn’t just one place, but. And the union guy had a line on the university, there was
some school up there, I forget what school it was, and he was going to deal with that.
There was another kid too in one of these schools who was going to help us, but he sort
of like, he spoke to me about it. He had no idea what he was doing. So John and I are
saying, okay, we need to get to the book. Paul had that little book you know, the
Economic Patriot there, and we need to get you books, and we need to get you some
position papers, so that when your guys are there they can get up and say you know, I
vote for Paul because of this and that and the other thing. So the Mexican guy says,
“Well they’re not going to say anything.” “So why not?” He said, “Well they don’t
speak English.” [Both laugh]
A: Do you have the Paul Tsongas in Espanola? So what, did the insurance guy just say
(--)
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W: Yah, he had these guys, you know, the Mexican Community I guess. I don’t know
who they were. He just went to the caucus and anyway, Paul won the caucus out there.
He did a good, we did a good job.
A: You did it! You delivered Washington State for him.
W: Well not me personally, but so there was going to be, Paul did make one visit out
there. (A: He did) And there was this plaza in Seattle that we said, “Okay, we’re going
to, this is where he’s going to be.” There was this big sort of like cement stand with an
arch, and you could climb up on it. And Paul was going to stand up there and give a
speech.
A: And all the people came in from Tacoma and (--)
W: Yah, and there was sort of like a, it was like a big, you know, like city hall plaza in
Boston kind of thing. It was just a plaza.
A: Sure, yah. And did you come in from Tacoma to be there?
W: No, but we were staying in Seattle and we would run down in Tacoma for the other
stuff, (A: I see) because Tacoma is only like a half a hour south of Seattle.
A: But anyway, the big thing was Paul’s coming and all of the troops had to work this
out. So, okay. Well we’re going to hang a flag from the top from the arch. So we have
(--) We need rope, and we need this and that. So we’re running all over the place trying
to find these things at hardware stores. I mean it was a real Mickey Mouse operation.
And then there was this, where the street was there was a sidewalk that lead down to this
plaza. So we, we hooked up the stanchions or something, so that we had to rope, sort of
roped it off. And at the very end there was nothing to hold the rope. So Paul’s coming.
John and I are standing there. He’s got the end of the rope here, and I’ve got the end of a
rope here to make this little thing. We had our blue blazers and our sunglasses on. They
called us the Blues Brothers. Paul drives up, or the car drives up. Paul gets out. He
takes one good look at us and he says, “What the hell are you doing?”
A: Now you hadn’t talked to him probably in a month or two, or something, right?
W: No. He didn’t know who had gone. Yah, he didn’t know who had gone out there.
He was like, what the hell is this! So he goes in and he gets up on the thing and he makes
a speech. And he had a big deal about the flag, because we hung the flag up and people
said it was backwards, because the stars have to be in certain places. He had to change
that several times, but anyway, it went fine you know. And you know, like I said, he
ended up winning the caucus. It was really (--)
A: How many states did he end up winning?
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W: I don’t know. I mean (A: Seven, or eight, or) the thing was, he had, this was like
March, right? I mean New Hampshire must have been the end of February, this was like
early March. And when I got back here, because there was a conference, a community
action conference in Washington that I went to, and I was (--) So I’m down in
Washington and between conference I’d go back to the room and try to watch, you know,
because the next round I think New York, and several other states were coming up, you
know. So I turned on the TV, and there’s Paul saying, “I’m withdrawing from the race.”
I go, “What?”
A: Did you talk to him a lot after that, before he died?
W: Oh yah. Yah, we had, we talked a lot about the campaign, you know. But, and then
you know, of course Gretchen got very sick and, my wife had pancreatic cancer.
A: What year did she die?
W: ’96. So.
A: So was that a year before Paul?
W: She died in September, he died in January. But you know, she was, she had a tough
summer, you know, and he came up and visited a few times. And then, and then the
night she died I remember coming home, and he had called, you know, “I just heard the
news.” And then it wasn’t like I said, four months and [unclear].
A: Did you see him a few times before he died?
W: Yah, I saw him probably a few days before he died. I went up to his house. I
couldn’t get close to him at the time. He was so you know, he was in a bed, but you
know, you sort of stayed back because they were afraid of germs and everything else.
A: Yah. Yah.
W: Actually in ’86 when he was, he went through the bone marrow transplant thing, I
went down to the hospital to donate blood, or bone, whatever the hell it was. And they
took my blood pressure, and it was so high they wouldn’t let me donate. And they had
me sitting in this, on this gurney somewhere and you know, drinking juice and trying to
relax, because they said I could get it down, you know. They finally told me I had, and
the doctor said, I know part of it is you just (--) It’s not that you have high blood
pressure, it’s just you’re in the hospital, you know, you’re all (--)
A: Yah, you’re emotionally, you’re friend is here.
W: So. So I couldn’t do that part, but he, you know, that was, ’86 was the year the Sox
were big time champs there, [unclear]. And he was a big fan, as I was, and he couldn’t
get NESN in his hotel, hotel, his hospital room. So I used to tape the games on NESN.
75
And I would give it to Nicki to bring in, and she would you know, and then bring back
the tape. I’d tape another one. So that was kind of (--) In fact in ’75, thinking about
baseball, ’75 and he was in Congress, and the Sox won the pennant again. (A: Yup) The
first game of the World Series he got tickets from Tip O’Neil.
A: Oh really, yah.
W: So he and I went to the game, first game of the World Series. We had great seats too,
behind first base.
A: And guess what, they lost that game too.
W: They won that game. They won that game. Yah, they won, they loss that series.
A: Maybe in your lifetime, but I bet you I have better, I have better chances though.
W: I thought it was going to be this year it doesn’t (--) Yah I know, you got a longer life.
A: Well any other stories about Paul?
W: Probably. I just (--)
A: Do you think Paul came at the right moment to be (--) I mean Paul was the leader I
want to say, for the last quarter century of Lowell’s life here. And how do you think he
was able to maneuver to become that leader?
W: Well Paul was always, you know, you have to envision that he was an action guy.
He didn’t want to wait around. So I mean it really started, well it probably started on the
council, but I mean I’m thinking the creation of the LDFC is a good example of you
know, he sees and need and he just goes and does it, you know. And so when he, when
he left the Senate, I think he was determined that he was going to just you know, do
nothing. And as he went through that whole process, bone marrow thing, which was a lot
of [unclear]. And I think once he got through that he said, “Okay, I’m really going to do
something,” you know what I’m saying? I mean he just used his influence. He created
the Lowell Plan. He you know, he kept Tully of all people, that was the odd couple
[unclear] century.
A: Do you remember Paul talking about Tully?
W: Well just saying that you know, people had a you know, image of Tully was, he was
an old-time Paul, you know, he got jobs for his friends, he you know, manned the place
with an iron fist. But Paul said he was really much more aggressive than you know,
people would realize, and he was able to get Tully to do all kinds of things that were
good for the city (A: Yah) that other people would not have expected it to happen, you
know?
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A: Yah, yah.
W: And you know.
A: What was the secret to Paul’s persuasion?
W: I think, first of all, he was very smart. You know, I mean he could absorb
information and process it really you know, and he could express himself very well. And
he was very persuasive in a sense, and he made a lot of sense, you know. (A: Yah) And
then he, because of his position (--) I mean he was, he had quite an ego besides. All
politicians do.
A: You have to have some of that.
W: Yah, but I mean as a retired Senator he could get a lot of people on the phone,
[unclear], but he had a lot of influence. He could get the right people. And I think you
know, by the time you know, in the 90s when reputation was such, you know, he was the
go-to guy. So people listened to him. And you know, when he died I said, this is going
to be a real problem for the city. You know we lost our anchor.
A: Yah, yah. I don’t necessarily see that thing being filled yet, do you?
W: No. A lot of people wanted to fill the vacuum, but they couldn’t. I mean some
people think they do, but they don’t. He wants to be the guy.
A: Mr. Sun? Yah?
W: You know there’s nobody that had the influence that Paul had. (A: Yah) Now
Marty can be, you know, if things break right and Marty becomes Senator, that’s (--)
Because I mean people used to say to me, “How did Lowell get to where it is?” Because
we had our own United States Senator, that’s how we did it!
A: “Representing the state of Alaska, representing the state of Washington, representing
the city of Lowell. Roll call please.”
W: That’s right.
A: I think Paul Sheehy told me um, we had a U.S. Senator in the city council clothing, or
something like that. City Council was closed. Well any final thoughts about your time
here in the city, and the changes that have happened?
W: Gee, I hope they’re not final.
A: Well I’m not coming back to talk to you for two and a half hours, three and a half
hours any time real soon. And thank you for being so generous with your time.
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W: It’s not that so much as I don’t think I’m in the final stages of anything. I hope not
anyway. You know, I think, I think what’s happened in the last few years, and you know,
I have to give the administration credit for the you know, the artist district and the
turnaround downtown of the people coming in. I think they’ve done a great job in that
respect.
A: Did you ever think Lowell would be a National Park?
W: At what point?
A: Well back in the days.
W: Yah, I thought that was possible. (A: Really) I didn’t know what it mean? I wasn’t
sure what it meant to be a National Park, you know, and I think it’s turned out pretty
well. Although I really, it’s too bad that you know, the budget keeps getting cut, and they
can’t do what they need to do. But you know, I went to the Folk Festival last weekend,
and it’s just amazing! Streets filled with people. Everyone is having a good time. No
problems. (A: No) No fights.
A: I don’t think (--) I wonder if there was even an arrest this weekend.
W: I don’t think so. You know, the music sort of went down a little bit; not quite as
interesting and exciting as (--)
A: You didn’t like the Mongolian throat singers?
W: I did. I thought they were the most interesting thing that we had.
A: Very different.
W: But you know the Western guy, or whatever he was, Dale [Hawkins], I thought he
was awful! (A: Really) Awful. He couldn’t sing and the music was flat. You know, and
the kid band. Something strange about hearing a preteen sing about unrequited love.
You know, it just doesn’t, there’s something wrong here. But, and then those two guys,
Song Troubadours, or whatever they were.
A: I didn’t see them.
W: They started out kind of interesting, the guitar and harmonica.
A: Oh yah, those two black folks.
W: The story reminded me of [Sonny, Terry and Barney McGee?). I don’t know if you
remember them, but they. You ought to have a listen to their record sometime. They
were great, but it degenerated into singing Heartbreak Hotel, and stuff like that, and you
know, “What the hell is this!”
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A: They sort of, they sing a lot of pop songs at the end.
W: Yah, I didn’t like that. I thought the Irish Fiddler was good, and I liked the accordion
guy. Well I like the Irish music anyway. The French Step Dancers looked like they were
doing tap dancing, and they were using an Irish fiddler. So I couldn’t figure that one out.
And I liked the Puerto Rican Band. They were good.
A: Oh you got to see a lot of them, more than I did.
W: I didn’t see, didn’t see the [Sparrow], the Calypso guy. I missed him. Even the
Greek Band I thought was pretty good. [Unclear]
A: Yah, I’ve heard them before. Okay.
W: Well that’s my impression of the Folk Festival.
A: Yah. Any further thoughts?
W: I don’t [unclear].
A: Well thanks very much.
W: You’re welcome.
Interview ends
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