50 Years Ago
- The Northampton School Committee has determined that some $36,500 would be added to cover additional public-school students expected because of the closing of St. Michael’s parochial schools. Supt. John M. Buteau said that of the total $36,471 to be added, $27,042 would be for three new teaching positions.
- The Circle Players brought Mark Medoff’s 1973 play “When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder?” to life during performances at the People’s Institute last weekend. Roy Faudree is electrifying as the Megalomaniac Teddy. Amalia Neal, making her stage debut, plays the determinedly cheerful waitress who is in love with Red. She closes the play with a greedy surreptitious gesture, a little wordless moment that is the last image the audience sees.
25 Years Ago
- While the number of coffee shops and clothes boutiques in Northampton has risen over the past ten years, the number of people living there has dropped. According to 2000 Census figures released Wednesday, Northampton lost 311 people in the last decade, making it second from the bottom of Hampshire County’s 20 towns in terms of growth during that period.
- Residents of Florence raised a hodgepodge of issues, from traffic to industrial fumes to water quality, at a meeting on the future of Florence Wednesday night. Wayne Feiden, director of the Office of Planning and Development said, “People say, ‘I love Florence. I hope it stays the same.’ The truth is we don’t know what’s going to happen, but it’s not going to stay the same.”
10 Years Ago
- After a 38-year run, business owner Judith Fine is handing over the reins of Gazebo on Center Street to two employees, marking the end of a remarkable retail career in the city’s downtown and what she anticipates will be a seamless transition in ownership. Gazebo, which sells intimate apparel for women and primarily custom-fitted bras, was acquired Friday by employees Donna McNeight and Amy Dickinson.
- More than three-quarters of the 235 Northampton restaurant workers surveyed by the Pioneer Valley Workers Center make less than a living wage — a wage high enough to meet a basic standard of living, which in this city amounts to $13.18 per hour. This was one of several findings Clare Hammonds of the UMass Labor Center presented to the City Council Committee on Community Resources Monday evening.