Eugene Weisberg

Eugene Weisberg (1917-1970) was responsible for many mid-20th century structures in Lowell.  Born in Roxbury and the son of Russian-Jewish emigres, Weisberg grew up in Lowell and earned his architecture degree from MIT in 1938.  In the 1930s, MIT instructed students in the International Style which was a style of clean lines and no historic ornament.  Weisberg’s classmates included such renowned figures as architect I.M. Pei who went on to design Boston’s Hancock Tower and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library among many other buildings.

After serving as a lieutenant in the Navy during World War II, Weisberg worked for a number of Boston architectural firms before returning to Lowell to set up his office in the Fiske Building on Central Street where he soon established a thriving practice.  He designed a house for his parents on Westview Road while his earliest works in Lowell included the Waldimer Pontiac car dealership (1953) on Middlesex Street, today home of the City of Lowell DPW.

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By the mid-1950s, he took on much larger projects including the Temple Beth-El (1954, 105 Princeton Boulevard), a series of branch banks for the Union National Bank including one at 163 Pine Street (1958), and the Tewksbury Shopping Plaza off of Rogers Street.   By the 1960s, he joined with realtor/developer Van Greenby to design a series of houses along Lincoln Parkway and adjacent streets in the Highlands neighborhood. He also became actively involved in Lowell’s Citizen Advisory Committee for Urban Renewal from 1961-69.

Weisberg’s buildings outside of Lowell include the Anshe Sfard Synagogue/Temple Israel, (Manchester, New Hampshire) and the Allendale Country Club (1961, Dartmouth).  His last Lowell building was just beginning construction when Weisberg passed away at 54, the Lowell Bank and Trust Company (1970, 489 Merrimack Street) which today houses Santander Bank.