Jim Bridgman

50 Years Ago

  • The owners of the Pleasant Street building which houses Sheehan’s Cafe, a famous Northampton bar for nearly a century, have petitioned the city license commission for permission to open a new bar on the site. It was learned last week that the Sheehan family, which has operated the bar since the 1920s, had been given 30 days to leave the premises. The new bar will be called the Gallery.
  • Atty. Elizabeth A. Porada and Fred B. Grinnell Jr. were elected to the board of directors of Northampton National Bank at its annual meeting yesterday. Atty. Porada succeeds her father, Joseph V. Porada, to become the first woman elected to serve as a director of a Northampton commercial bank.

25 Years Ago

  • Sixty years after their father opened the Miss Florence Diner and after working there since their teens, his two sons have put the Northampton landmark on the market. The brothers, Maurice Alexander Jr., 54, and Thomas Alexander, 50, who own and run the business together, say they are committed to finding the right buyer for the restaurant.
  • Pro Corp. PMC, a plastic injection molding plant, has laid off about 30 employees, a fourth of its work force, after losing a toy-company customer that moved from Massachusetts to Ohio. The laid-off employees worked in machine operations, packaging, assembly and management, Pro Corp. owner P.M. Chakrabarti said.

10 Years Ago

  • Mayor David J. Narkewicz will allow police to hang a banner on City Hall in May to honor officers who have died in the line of duty. The mayor’s decision comes 10 days after the city’s police union asked permission to unfurl a banner on the downtown building to recognize National Peace Officers Memorial Day during National Police Week in May.
  • Organizers of the annual Extravaganja event, a large marijuana legalization event formerly held in Amherst, received commendation from some members of the Ward 3 Neighborhood Association as they seek to hold the event at the Three County Fairgrounds. The fairgrounds are private property, so the association and city government would not have direct control of the event.