A Look Back: March 17

■The burned-out Norwood Apartments on Bridge Street will be torn down in “the next month or so,” according to owner August Woicekoski. Woicekoski said today the demolition firm slated to raze the building is looking for a place to dump the wood at no charge.

■The Greater Northampton Chamber of Commerce has appointed a new executive director, Paul J. Walker of the city. The 45-year-old Walker, who is store-manager for J. J. Newbery Inc. in Westfield, will assume his new position in two weeks.

■Workers with Northeast Steel Erectors of Sunderland have been hoisting steel girders into place for the Hampshire Regional YMCA’s expansion at Prospect and Massasoit streets. The steel frames for the YMCA’s new $1.5 million Family Center took shape over the past week. The two-story, 12,000-square-foot center is to be completed this fall.

■Lilly Library is moving into the computer age. Librarian Joyce Neal said that she hopes the project — which involves buying computers and software and developing the new system — will be completed by July.

■The historic Mount Holyoke Summit House is expected to reopen this spring after nearly $1 million in construction and renovations. It has been closed for three years. Its long-awaited completion will allow visitors to re-enter the former 19th-century hotel and mountaintop showpiece in J.A. Skinner State Park.

■With the Holyoke St. Patrick’s Day Parade just one day away, Northampton participants are making their final preparations and putting the finishing touches on this year’s float. Preparing to march in what is believed to be the nation’s second largest annual St. Patrick’s Day parade entails hard work, said Tom Dunphy, a member of Northampton St. Patrick’s Association’s board of directors.