This Mass. City Was Home To ‘Spaghettiville'; One The Largest Pasta Plants In The U.S.

"Wednesday is Prince Spaghetti day". I remember hearing this as a child. It was definitely a thing in Massachusetts and New England, because my parents would literally save pasta night for Wednesday.

Prince is born in Boston's North End

The brand we all know as Prince pasta started in the North End at 92 Prince St. In 1912, a few immigrants from Sicily started the spaghetti business.

The phrase comes from a 1969 commercial where a mother in Boston's North End Italian  neighborhood yells to her child from a window that dinner is ready. The boy rushes home to eat because Wednesday is Prince Spaghetti day.

What and Where was Spaghettiville?

The location for Prince in the North End eventually became to small, so it ended up moving to Lowell, Massachusetts in 1939.

"Prince Spaghettiville" was in Lowell, named for the Prince plant that was located there until 1997 when it closed.

The Prince pasta plant was one of the largest pasta manufacturing plants in the U.S. at one time, employing nearly 400 people.

Prince Spaghettiville Bridge and Low Clearance

However, two signs of the area's former existence as Prince Spaghettiville may be found along the two main roads leading to the area, Lawrence St. and Gorham St.

When each of these passes under the current Pan Am Railways main, "Welcome to Prince Spaghettiville" signs still exist on one side of each bridge. The bridges are most notorious for being truck catchers at 12'5" and 12'0", respectively.

Getting around them requires a 2-3 mile out of the way trip, or a tight, winding journey to the grade crossing at Meadowcroft St. and thin streets not designed for tractor-trailer traffic. -trainorders.com

Prince was eventually sold in 1987 which subsequently closed the Lowell plant ten years later in 1997, leaving a hole in Lowell. The Boston area market is still responsible for a massive amount of pasta consumerism today.