50 Years Ago
■A Leitz $2,700 fluorescence microscope is now expediting diagnoses in Cooley Dickinson Hospital’s bacteriology laboratory. Used for many diseases, including tuberculosis, streptococci, meningitis and syphilis, the unit increases the ease and speed with which certain specific diagnoses can be made.
A bulldozer owned by West Springfield contractors Welch and Corr has been removed from the West Whately Reservoir, after the water level was lowered considerably to facilitate removal. The bulldozer was reportedly working on a steep slope along the bank of the new 750-million-gallon Northampton reservoir when it slid down the slope and into the water.
25 Years Ago
■A New York producer is making plans to open a new musical theater company based at the Academy of Music, fulfilling a long-stated goal of bringing summer theater to the Academy stage. The New Lyric Theater Project, featuring new musicals, classics, cabaret, and operetta, could debut next summer.
Hampshire County government, teetering on the edge of extinction following Gov. William F. Weld’s veto of $900,000 to pay operating costs and salaries, now must rely on the local lawmakers to avert layoffs and loss of services. If the money doesn’t come through, county officials say, layoffs of 40 workers and the closing of the Hampshire County Registry of Deeds could begin within weeks.
10 Years Ago
■For the second time in four years, Northampton City Planner Wayne M. Feiden will share his planning expertise abroad through the U.S. State Department’s Fulbright Specialists Program. Feiden leaves this month for a six-week stint in New Zealand.
The region’s two congressmen said Thursday that they could not support cuts to Social Security and Medicare as a part of a potential compromise over raising the nation’s debt ceiling. Those comments by Democrats John W. Olver of Amherst and Richard E. Neal of Springfield came as negotiations between President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans appeared to gain steam.
