A Look Back: Dec. 7

50 Years Ago

■Mayor Sean M. Dunphy’s office announced today that the state Department of Public Works has approved the city’s application for a stop-light system at the intersection of Jackson Street, Bridge Road, and Cooke Avenue.

■Leonard Baskin, internationally renowned artist, has decided to leave Smith College after being a faculty member for 20 years. Baskin and his family are expected to move next spring to England where he owns a country home near Devon.

25 Years Ago

■Parishioners at Our Lady of the Annunciation Church in Florence may have been casting their eyes heavenward more often than usual, after a cross atop the church’s steeple was nearly blown off in heavy winds last week. A lightning rod cable attached to the two-foot gold cross was all that kept it from plummeting from its perch atop the 90-foot steeple.

■Area students scored better, overall, than statewide averages on the new comprehensive achievement tests given last spring, according to results released today. The MCAS tests were administered statewide to 209,000 public school fourth-, eighth-, and 10th-graders for the first time in English, math, and science/technology.

10 Years Ago

■Two days after Nancy L. Sykes lost the election for mayor of Easthampton on Nov. 5, she got a telephone call asking if she was interested in being a different kind of leader. Sykes is now the interim minister of the First Congregational Church of Southampton, which she knows well from when she lived in that town on and off from 1985 to 2006.

■Planning for renovations to a science center complex on the University of Massachusetts campus can begin following the release of state money for the project last week. The $51 million for the modernization of Morrill Science Center, a four-building complex constructed between 1959 and 1966, is part of the 2014 Capital Investment Plan announced Wednesday by Gov. Deval Patrick.