A Look Back, June 9

50 Years Ago

■The Family Planning Council of Western Massachusetts is conducting its first large-scale fundraising drive to make up for government cutbacks in the council’s funding. The council, which serves 7,500 clients in the four Western Massachusetts counties, hopes to raise $10,000 from private sources, according to Leslie Laurie, its executive director.

■The Hadley asparagus crop has suffered a double blow from disease and weather conditions this year, with low yields resulting in high prices in the marketplace. A fusarium, or soil-related disease, has become a “real threat to our asparagus industry,” according to Prof. Cecil Thompson of the University of Massachusetts.

25 Years Ago

■Residents along Grove Avenue in Leeds are concerned that a proposed subdivision for a roughly 50-acre parcel next to their neighborhood will destroy their quiet street and damage a valuable piece of open land. The latest plans for the subdivision, “Beaver Brooks Estates,” will be reviewed tonight.

■Over the objections of four city restaurant and bar owners, the License Commission voted Wednesday to grant an all-alcohol seasonal license to Look Park, which has plans to convert its former pool house into a banquet facility.

10 Years Ago

■Thomas W. McMullen has been named executive director and Kristy Clark, director of marketing and admissions, for a new assisted living residence, Christopher Heights of Northampton due to open this fall. Christopher Heights will be a part of Village Hill, a 126-acre, mixed-use community.

■The Mountain Farms Mall proposes to knock down two free-standing buildings and construct new ones with more than double the space. The plan is to knock down the former Burger King and Florence Savings Bank buildings near the intersection of Russell and South Maple streets and replace them with two larger structures.