Jim Bridgman

50 Years Ago

  • A letter has been received at the Hadley Post Office, addressed as follows: “Please deliver to a young lady artist and potter who drives a Volkswagen with the front hood gaily decorated with her own artistic creation.” Postmaster Frank Zalot says the letter is waiting at the office for the person who fits that description.
  • The Smith’s Vocational High School Board of Trustees last night directed the school’s administrators to prepare a written denial of allegations of sex discrimination made in a grievance filed by seven students on Monday. The trustees agreed with remarks of Acting Director C. Bradley McGrath that Smith’s School affords equal opportunity in courses for both men and women.

25 Years Ago

  • Five high school seniors will make their own version of a beef tenderloin entree Monday in a contest that will earn one of them a $500 college scholarship. The five seniors, all involved with culinary programs in their local vocational high schools, will compete in the second annual cook-off at Mulino’s Trattoria on Center Street.
  • The 68-year-old Polish American Cafe will close its doors with a farewell party Saturday to make room for the widening of Route 9. Frank Kowal, who came to Hadley from Lukowa, Poland, opened the restaurant in 1933 and called it the Paradise Cafe. It has been the Polish American Cafe since 1971.

10 Years Ago

  • Members of the St. Mary of the Assumption Church on Elm Street are appealing for help in searching for a statue of St. Francis of Assisi that went missing late last week. For years, the stone figurine, approximately 3 feet tall, rested on a pedestal outside the now-empty church, but now there’s just a “disappointing emptiness,” said the Rev. Francis Reilly, pastor of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish. The statue was first noticed missing on the morning of March 18.
  • Demolition of the former Amherst Carriage Shops is underway, with construction of the mixed-use One East Pleasant building that will replace it likely to begin this summer. The five-story project will include 84 apartments on the upper floors and retail on the ground level.