■The new addition to the First National Bank of Amherst has just been completed and the public has been invited to an open house at the institution Friday. The new addition will house additional safety deposit boxes, a new vault, offices and a secretarial area. The bank’s capital has grown from $51,000 in its early years to a present $1 million in deposits.
■The Northampton City Council Thursday approved a resolution to endorse the establishment of the Connecticut Historic Riverway. The purpose of the riverway will be to conserve the cultural, scenic, ecological, historic, scientific and recreational values which contribute to public use and enjoyment.
■A renovation of Northampton High School, not its replacement, lies ahead for the city. The School Committee last week decided to move ahead with renovating the school and creating a small addition — a project considered to have a much better chance of eventually securing 70 percent state financing than building an entirely new high school.
■A Chinese restaurant will next month fill the space in the Pine Street Mini-mall in Florence, left vacant by the closing of Sandy’s Restaurant last October. Kwong-Kuen Cheun, a 10-year chef at the Peking Garden in Hadley who left that restaurant last month, said he will open the Great Wall Restaurant by mid-July.
■Yarn-bombing. Yarn-storming. Knit graffiti. Street textile arts. From Iceland to Northampton, it’s all the rage. Random signposts, railings, fences wear crocheted and knitted socks and cozies these days.
■After being trapped inside a garage Tuesday at the home of Larry and Betty Jones of Leeds, a black bear broke a window to escape, leaving her three cubs inside. Eventually, she got them out.