Jim Bridgman

50 Years Ago

  • The Northampton Fire Department and police officers searched the Northampton National Bank this morning after the bank received a call that a bomb had been planted in the bank and would explode in five minutes. Employees of the bank evacuated the building while officers spent a half-hour looking for a bomb.
  • Patrick Kenney, who has held a variety of titles in the five years in which he has worked in City Hall but has never been on the city payroll, is resigning his present position to accept a job with a Springfield insurance firm. Kenney said yesterday afternoon that he will leave the $10,800-a-year federally funded position of community development coordinator on Nov. 1 to join the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co.’s real estate investment department.

25 Years Ago

  • The desire of a 12-year-old boy to help the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack developed into a bike fundraiser to be held Saturday on the Northampton Bike Path. Mary Ann Kelly, mother of Adam Bidwell, a seventh grader at JFK Middle School, said her son wanted to do something to assist the victims shortly after the attack. “He came up with this idea of having a bike-a-thon,” said Kelly.
  • A new restaurant is about to open in the building that housed the former Ladybird restaurant at 57 Center St. Owners of Circa, which is slated to open early next month, have applied to the city License Commission for a seasonal wine and malt license. Dane Boryta of Northampton, a former chef at the upscale Piaf’s Restaurant and Cabaret in San Francisco, is listed as one of the owners.

10 Years Ago

  • Ellen Kennedy, an eighth-grade science teacher at John F. Kennedy Middle School in Florence, is the 2016 Fire and Life Safety Educator of the Year. The award was presented at the 22nd annual Massachusetts Public Fire and Life Safety Education Conference on Tuesday.
  • By the middle of next month, the property that housed Swift River Academy will once again help people find their way. The former school for troubled youths, whose acreage extends into Plainfield, was bought and renovated by a Tennessee company, Addiction Campuses. The 12 buildings and nearly 600 acres will reopen as a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center, called Swift River.