50 Years Ago
- Northampton District Court Chief Probation officer Jeremiah G. Lucey, who has become an institution during his 30 years in the probation department, 13 of which he served in his present post, announced that he will retire at the close of business today. Lucey, 64, is a Northampton native.
- The Northampton School Committee last night voted to hire persons from outside Northampton for two non-teaching jobs, after sharp debate and over objections by the mayor. Mayor David W. Cramer and long-time board member Stanley J. Krause argued that equally qualified Northampton residents should be hired for the jobs. “When you say that we shouldn’t look after our own (city residents) first, you’re making a big mistake,” said Krause.
25 Years Ago
- In a horrific sequence of destruction, terrorists hijacked two airliners and crashed them into the World Trade Center in a coordinated series of attacks Tuesday morning that brought down the twin 110-story towers. A plane also slammed into the Pentagon, raising fears that the seat of government itself was under attack.
- Everywhere people meet, life was different today in the Valley shortly after 9 a.m., as horror took hold. Shops up and down Main Street in Northampton had radios tuned to news reports, but the streets and sidewalks seemed eerily quiet. Teachers huddled with their pupils in classrooms. Across the region, people could be found clustered in small groups, expressing horror, disbelief, fear and anger.
10 Years Ago
- Massachusetts Senate President Stanley Rosenberg has married his longtime partner. WGBH-FM reports that Rosenberg, an Amherst Democrat, and Bryon Hefner were married on Tuesday. Rosenberg became the first openly gay leader of a legislative chamber in Massachusetts when he took the gavel as Senate president in January 2015.
- Fifteen years after terrorists piloted two planes into the World Trade Center’s twin towers, killing more than 2,700 people, a deep feeling of loss is still tangible inside the locust fence confines of The Cooks’ Garden at Historic Deerfield. The herb garden, which is behind the visitors’ center, was built through donations and dedicated in 2006 in remembrance of Margaret Quinn Orloske, who died in the attacks.