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The New York Times The New York Times Travel May 30, 2003   

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Some Noise Relief for Concord (and Its History)

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

The shot heard round the world would probably be inaudible today, drowned out by the roar of airplanes at nearby Hanscom Field.

Local residents, preservationists and politicians have been complaining for years that noise from the incessant air traffic is damaging this area, which so brims with history that within three miles are more than 1,000 sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Evoking the earliest days of the Republic, they include the place where Paul Revere was captured and the North Bridge, where, in Emerson's phrase, ''once the embattled farmers stood and fired the shot heard round the world.''

Despite the neighbors' complaints and court actions, the airport, under the quasi-governmental authority of the Massachusetts Port Authority, has become an ever-more popular hub for corporate jets, particularly since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have prodded more business people to fly in private planes. Most recently, Federal Express has inquired about establishing a base at the airfield, which means that planes could be coming and going all night. As a result, the local citizenry, a bit like Revere, has been spreading the alarm.

Today, help arrived.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation, which works to save historic sites and revitalize communities, named Minute Man National Historical Park and its environs among the 11 most endangered historic places in the United States.

David McCullough, the historian, spoke at a designation ceremony in front of the North Bridge. ''So thunderous is the sound of the jets coming over here that the guides at this bridge often have to stop talking because their visitors can't hear,'' he told a crowd of a few hundred people.

Custodians of the airport were outraged at the designation.

Massport officials said later by telephone that the airport was quieter than it was in 1959, when Congress designated Minute Man as a national park, because airplanes are quieter these days and because Hanscom no longer handles military aircraft. They said that the trust had not done its homework and that the real problem, particularly on the historic Battle Road, came from automobile traffic, which has increased because of the local towns' decisions to zone for more office space. The airport, they said, accounts for only 4 percent of the cars on Battle Road during rush hour.

The designation also upset Mayor Thomas Menino of Boston, although most of the state's politicians support it. The mayor said in an interview that Hanscom Field eased air traffic into Boston's crowded Logan Airport. He also said he was disappointed that the trust, of which he was once a member, chose to protect mere serenity in a suburban park instead of what he said were the more fragile urban structures in the flight path at Logan.

''I don't know why their trees and birds are more important than my historical sites in the city of Boston,'' Mayor Menino said.

The intensity of the reaction against the designation is perhaps one measure of its potential influence. Indeed, Mayor Menino said he wanted to try to get such designation next year for the sites that he says are harmed by noise and pollution from the Boston airport.

The designation provides no money but typically earns a site national attention, and can galvanize public pressure. Since the listings began in 1988, the trust, created by Congress but using only private money, has identified nearly 150 one-of-a-kind sites, helping to block a Disney theme park from the Manassas battlefield in Virginia, for example, and sparing the Chancellorsville battlefield in Virginia from encroaching development.

The announcement of the designation of Minute Man park inspired some citizens to dress in colonial outfits as they packed into a tent here for the ceremony. Beyond the tent flowed the Concord River, where Emerson, Thoreau and Hawthorne used to ice-skate together.

''Massport's ambitious plans for expanded use of the Hanscom Field civilian airport, already the second busiest in takeoffs and landings in all of New England, are threatening the park and the surrounding sites with increased ground and air traffic, noise and visual intrusion,'' Wendy Nicholas, director of the northeast office of the national trust, said in announcing the designation.

Mr. McCullough invoked the patriots who ''stood their ground here,'' and as he read from the work of another historian, David Hackett Fischer, he gestured to the places mentioned. ''That's Emerson's house,'' he said, adding that history can speak to people if they can be in the spots where it took place.

Also on hand was Michael S. Dukakis, the former governor and presidential candidate and now a professor at Northeastern University, who spoke about the park with a passion that he was criticized as lacking during his presidential campaign. As he recalled coming here a couple of years ago with his mother, who died recently, his eyes filled with tears.

His voice rising, he said he was ''angry and embarrassed'' that a state as history-conscious as Massachusetts had to rely on an outside organization to help preserve such an important area.

''Nobody's going to tell me that corporate jets have to be here!'' Mr. Dukakis thundered.

It is not quite clear what the opponents of the airport will do now. Mr. McCullough suggested making the park a no-flight zone, as was done several years ago when jets were flying over Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's house in Virginia.

Mr. Dukakis suggested inviting the state's new governor, Mitt Romney, to the park so he could get a feel for it and then replace the gubernatorial appointees to the Massport board with people who would put controls on Hanscom Field.

Representative Martin T. Meehan, a Massachusetts Democrat who also spoke today, suggested diverting some of the Hanscom plane traffic to the Manchester, N.H., airport, which is about 50 minutes away and is operating at half capacity.

Anna Winter, a Concord resident who started a group called Save Our Heritage, said she wanted the airport to be transferred from Massport to a smaller, local authority that would regulate the flights.

But Massport has no interest in any such changes.

Josщ Juves, a Massport spokesman, questioned the basis for the designation, saying that the airport opponents had no data or research and that the trust had not offered any hard facts for its decision.

Massport reported last month that activity at Hanscom increased 6.2 percent in 2002 from 2001 and that business jet takeoffs and landings increased 35 percent. But Mr. Juves said the overall numbers showed little expansion over the decades.

''We have not expanded,'' Mr. Juves said, noting that in 1959 there were 197,000 flights at Hanscomb and that in 2002 there were 218,000, down from a peak of 300,000 in 1970.

''The number basically hasn't altered in 40 years,'' he said. ''What has altered is there is less noise and less environmental impact from that facility. This notion of expansion is convenient for stirring up emotions and fund-raising, but it doesn't correlate to the reality.''

Mr. Juves said residents were using the airport as a scapegoat, while their real complaint was about the amount of development that had occurred here.

''You've seen millions and millions of square feet added in office space and research and development, and those projects are locally approved,'' he said.




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