50 Years Ago

■A petition bearing some 500 signatures and protesting the closing of the Northampton State Hospital geriatric unit was sent Friday to several state officials, including Gov. Francis W. Sargent. The petitioners “strongly oppose the phasing out of the geriatric unit at Northampton State Hospital, and further oppose the dumping of the patients out of the state, and into nursing homes and rest home for the sole purpose of phasing out the geriatric unit.”

■The Northampton Fire Department was called Friday to extinguish a fire at the city police station. Officials reported that a fire broke out in the evidence room at the station. Electrical equipment was damaged. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

25 Years Ago

■George and Ira Gershwin’s “Crazy for You” will replace “West Side Story” as the spring musical at Amherst Regional High School. “West Side Story” was canceled last week after Puerto Rican parents, students and their allies protested the Leonard Bernstein-Stephen Sondheim musical as demeaning to Puerto Ricans and depicting gang violence.

■It won’t be quite as hard to pass the 10th-grade MCAS test as many students and their parents had feared. At least, not in the early years. The Board of Education voted Tuesday to set the passing standard for high school graduation at the lowest possible level of the “needs improvement” category. To do otherwise, they said, would prevent scores of students from earning a diploma.

10 Years Ago

■Local Ecuadoreans are expressing optimism about President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration that halts deportation and provides work permits for nearly 5 million undocumented immigrants. Dozens of local Ecuadoreans celebrated a special Thanksgiving service of Iglesia Bautista Quechua Nueva Vida church in the chapel of First Churches on Main Street Sunday night.

■The Antique Center of Northampton, located on Market Street, will close on Dec. 20, after 28 years in business. Owner Stephen Whitlock, of Belchertown, said he will take his business online.