Coffey, Dennis 03.09 - University of Massachusetts Lowell Libraries

A: The Merrimack?
D: Yah the Merrimack.
A: Yah.
D: Yah, the Merrimack, and I was feeling kind of sad about it. And it was probably
around that time that my interest in this started, started growing, because I said, you
know, it’s just such a waste you know, they’re such, in a way, beautiful structures and
they add so much to this community, and they were just being torn down. Yah, I
remember feeling, feeling badly about it. And I vaguely remember the row house
controversy, but like I said, I was involved in other parts of life at the time.
A: Now you came back and you worked for Center Cities Committees? (D: Right) And
then they set up the Historic District Canal Commission. (D: Right. Right) Now did you
have a part on that Commission?
D: Yes. Yah, yah.
A: What was your role there?
D: Yah, I’m trying to think, “Did we do that before I left for Nashua?”
A: This legislation got passed under Paul Cronin, but maybe the funding didn’t become
available until maybe around ’74 or 5.
D: Yah, that’s right. That’s right. Yah, my, I had a supporting role in that both in the
early stages I think and then, and then at Center City Committee. Like I said, Paul’s
interest in having me there was he wanted to have someone who would you know, have
the sensitivity to these issues that he didn’t see in the CDA for example.
A: And you’re talking about Paul Cronin?
D: Cronin, yah. And so the development of that Commission, you know, we really
provided some staff support in the early days to it, you know, along with Armand
Mercier and other folks like that that were involved early on. Concurrently we were, one
of the things that we did was we worked on the Lowell, the State authorized historic
districts. (A: Okay) So we were doing that concurrent with that so that we would have
some local control. And I was, I was I don’t know, some people call me the founder of
the Lowell Historical Commission, or whatever, but you know when they established it
you know, we got some people appointed and so forth. I think Allen Gerson may have
been on it in the beginning, (A: Okay. Okay) and so forth, and [unclear].
A: So this is like the Historic, the early Historic Board?
22