A Look Back: Nov. 21

50 Years Ago

■Downtown Northampton stores will be darker, the traditional Christmas lighting will be absent, and the neon signs of bars and package stores will be dimmed. But a bright note marks the latest local energy-savings measures – free bus fare into the city. The Downtown Merchants Association has voted to reimburse downtown shoppers for their bus fare into the city by deducting the bus fare from any purchase of $5 or more.

■Nixon administration officials say a curtailment of Sunday driving is being considered as one way to conserve fuel. White House energy adviser John A. Love said Monday the administration may soon require the closing of gasoline stations on Sundays.

25 Years Ago

■Parents would choose which school their children attend, within limits, under a plan to correct a racial imbalance among the city’s elementary schools. The Desegregation Task Force will present details of that proposed plan, as well as two other options for desegregating city schools, at a special meeting of the School Committee at the end of the month.

■The new four-way stop signs at the intersection of Florence and Burts Pit roads will soon loom even larger to halt motorists accustomed to passing right on through. The city plans to increase the size of the octagonal signs that went up last Friday on Florence Road, eventually placing 48-inch signs there, each of them more than a foot larger than the signs that went up Friday.

10 Years Ago

■Three out of five adults in Massachusetts say they support having casinos in the commonwealth, but most also don’t want them in their own city or town, according to a new survey by the Western New England University Polling Institute.

■Northampton Mayor David J. Narkewicz has backed off an earlier call to consider merging Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School with the city schools in favor of asking the state to help find a new structure that would preserve the 105-year-old vocational school’s independence.