I think you didn't know that [emoji2]
I have known that for a long time. There were pictures in our local paper when they were installed with the story of why and how they were installed.
GG, Logan airport has expanded so much that you wouldn't recognize it as it was when I was a kid. We lost our Wood Island Park. It was huge. Had a swimming pool for small kids. A snack bar, shell concert area, about five baseball fields, etc. On weekends it was always crowded. The airport took that away from us. It is now the service end of the airport with its own access road. As the airport has expanded we lost a beautiful tree lines street leading right to Wood Island Park and about two hundred beautiful homes. We have had to put up with the extra traffic, the noise, the construction trucks up and down our streets, etc. We also lost a few young children to death because those construction trucks were racing up and down our streets. And don't forget the increase of noise from the airplanes. Then when the jets arrived, you couldn't hear yourself talk when a plane flew overhead of your home. City Hall and the State House finally heard us. All expansion of the airport came to a screeching halt. But it took about 100 mothers standing in the middle of the streets day after day, regardless of the weather, preventing the construction trucks from making their daily trips. Day after day, they were out there with pictures of the children that had been killed.
So along comes Chapter Two. In order to placate us, they installed sound proof windows in
all of our schools and homes that were right under the flight paths. To replace the loss of Wood Island Park, the airport built five beautiful parks right along the waterfront. The airport also pays for sailing lessons in the summer. And there is now a path from one end of this filled in island to the other. At one time there were railroad tracks along that path. You can walk it or ride a bike. Today you see a lot of joggers getting their daily run in. The airport had taken claim of it and you could be arrested if you touched the alarmed fence. The fence is gone.
Right now they are again building a new runway. The planes are having to use a landing runway to take off while construction is going on. Those homes that the planes are flying so low over while gaining height, are now getting all new sound proof windows. The airport has impacted three communities. East Boston, Winthrop and South Boston. We got the worst of their expansion plans. So we get the most of the new benefits. And one of those benefits were these weather bug reporting stations. Not a necessity by any means. But still fun to have.
Who says you can't fight City Hall? We did and we won. And so did Winthrop and South Boston. And we aren't done. Some mothers were out there just a week or so ago, counting the number of construction trucks making trips back and forth. We also have a civilian committee that keeps an eye on the airport.
There was one last holdout to Logan. An old man whose great grandparents had come to this country bought the land and built the triple decker he lived in. He refused to sell his home to Logan. It was right at the entrance to the service road. He died a couple of years ago and his family finally sold it to the airport at an inflated price. It is now one of the beautiful parks that the airport created. And right at the end of I90. Lots of International visitors stop there. Specially those with children.