50 Years Ago
- Although work on the renovation of Main Street’s Pulaski Park is only partially completed, the project has already come under fire from some citizens who think it looks more like a set for “West Side Story” than the green spot that they remember. One letter to the editor states, “Our newest flop is our cement park in downtown Northampton. Who wants a park full of cement?”
- Prices of new homes are rising at an annual rate of 22 percent, throwing “a big question mark” over the ability of builders to construct houses that are cheap enough for families buying their first home, a government agency says. The median sale price of a new home in February was $43,000, compared to $38,000 in February 1975.
25 Years Ago
- Amid lingering concerns that the design is too massive —and too modern —for its site on Elm Street, a city historic panel is poised to vote on a proposed Smith College campus center this week. Among concerns the panel will consider are those of the Massachusetts Historical Commission, which has said the building will have an “adverse effect” on the street’s historic character.
- Americans in the 1990s continued a 30-year trend away from the traditional married-with-children model, a movement that gradually is rewriting the notion of family, census data being released Tuesday shows. Households composed of unmarried partners became strikingly more common, growing by almost 72 percent — nearly five times as fast as the number of households overall.
10 Years Ago
- The Amherst school district is one of four statewide chosen to pilot electric buses. The Baker administration awarded four $350,000 grants to schools in Amherst, Cambridge and Concord and the Acton-Boxborough Regional School District through the state Department of Energy Resources new Vehicle-to-Grid Electric School Bus pilot program.
- Retiring state Rep. Ellen Story will be celebrated by the Amherst Education Foundation on Friday for her commitment to the area schools and community. Story, who has served 24 years as a representative, announced in January she would not seek another term.