10,000 Hawks...And One Maguffin

One of the more notable film makers of the 20th century was English director Alfred Hitchcock, the "Master Of Suspense."

"Hitch" had a way of maintaining viewers' interest in his films, including using what he referred to as a "maguffin."

A what?

A maguffin was a tool which made the viewer think was the plot's centerpiece, but in actuality was used to direct the audience to the film's real plot .

The classic example of this takes place in his 1960 masterpiece, "Psycho."

The film starts with Marion Crane's embezzlement of $40,000 from her Phoenix employer to help her financially-strapped boyfriend. Along the way she stops at a motel operated by one Norman Bates, who lives with his reclusive mother. And that's when the film's plot really takes off. The $40,000 is the maguffin.

I imagine the 10,000 Hawks must be students of Hitchcock. I say this because of their concern for "the environment," which never seems to include any offenders other than Tweed-New Haven Regional Airport.

They have copious talking points regarding the airport's impact on the air and the water. But upon closer inspection, they and another group, Save Our Shoreline, appear to give other possible environmental culprits a free pass time after time.

For example, in the summer of 2020, massive rains overwhelmed the local sewage treatment plant, the result being one million tons of raw sewage washing up on the beaches of East Haven and Branford. You would have been hard pressed to find any commentary from them regarding this incident, which has happened before."Nothing to see here, folks." Just like there's nothing to see in the drek emptied into Long Island Sound every day from the Mill and Quinnipiac Rivers. No, they're too concerned with Morris Creek and Tuttle Brook.

Some months ago, a proposal for an apartment complex to be built right on Long Island Sound in East Haven was brought before the Town Council, and while residents near the proposed site showed up to protest the plan, two groups conspicuous by their absence were---wait for it---the 10,000 Hawks and Save Our Shoreline. Just like that, the impact on the Sound wasn't an issue for them, nor was traffic and parking a problem. Just like traffic and parking isn't a problem for the newly-opened Home 2 Suites on Frontage Road.

And last year, the Townshend estate in New Haven's Annex was purchased by a consortium headed by a local businessman. Head Hawk Gabriela Campos visited the site and all but gave her blessings to the project, which includes fifty residential units to be built where woodlands currently stand. (In part it may be because the property's buyer, like Ms. Campos, is a veteran Tweed hater, although my guess is he wouldn't want his out-of-town clients to know that.) Nope, no concerns about traffic, parking or flooding.

The 10,000 Hawks bemoan the possibility of jet aircraft emissions on Lake Saltonstall from several hundred feet up, yet they're okay with the thousands upon thousands of motor vehicles traversing the lake's bridge day after day. Could it be that the emissions from those vehicles know enough to stay within the confines of I-95?

And while they have made asthma an issue in their crusade against Tweed, the same cannot be said of their involvement as it applies to asthma in communities such as New Haven's Dwight, Hill and Newhallville neighborhoods, where a Yale study showed incidents of asthma being the highest in those locales. Those asthma activists in East Haven didn't declare their standing with the residents of those neighborhoods as they did with the denizens of Morris Cove.

Nor did they side with those poor souls of Cedar Street, who for years had to contend with Amtrak's diesel engines idling literally right under their noses at all hours in the rail yard below. You didn't read of anyone from the East Shore raising their voice in protest. No, I'm guessing their attitude was something along the lines of, "let 'em choke."

Which isn't to say that they haven't tried to draw core city residents to their side. One specious talking point they came up with went something to the effect of , "those planes fly over the Hill and Newhallville, too." Yeah, so what?

If I'm a resident of one of the more "at risk" neighborhoods of New Haven, I would think that some jet plane flying several hundred feet over me for five to ten seconds would be pret-ty much near the bottom of my list of neighborhood concerns, just as crime, quality education and employment are on the back burner in the Cove.

Even in the 17th Ward, a neighborhood which includes the Annex, the airport was practically a non-issue in the last Alder campaign.

I guess the only way we'd know for sure if the airport's neighbors are truly "pro-environment" is to observe how they live.

Do their homes have solar panels on the roof? With all that open space and no tall buildings, access to solar power should be a snap.

Do they drive electric vehicles to reduce the use of fossil fuels? That's what the environmentalists want the rest of us to do.( Maybe you can afford an electric vehicle and charging station. I know I can't.) If not, why not?

Are their homes without gas stoves, to eliminate the need for fracking? (That's also being foisted on the rest of us.)

Do their houses use air conditioning in the summer months? It's not like they need to, with many of them living near the shoreline, and those refreshing sea breezes.

Do they eschew consuming meat in favor of insects, which are quite high in protein? (This would be an excellent opportunity to "lead by example.")

And would they welcome vast windmill farms in Long Island Sound to assist in the generation of "renewable" energy? (One airport opponent proposed turning the airport into a giant solar panel farm. Just think of how much more efficient an offshore windmill farm would be! And they could look out their windows and see it at work each and every day!)

The number of airport neighbors actually participating in any of the above? Infinitesimally small.

Moreover, East Shore residents were quite comfortable over the years with the marshlands along Woodward Avenue made into a public park, the open space near Tweed becoming an industrial park, and the makeover of the Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge to handle even more vehicular traffic. Because all those projects benefited them?

If they're so concerned about "climate change" and "rising sea levels"...then what are they doing living so close to Long Island Sound?

So, if "the environment" is their maguffin, then what's the real "plot"?

Here's one possibility.

Years ago, I attended an airport public hearing in the basement meeting room of St. Bernadette's Church, and the local state representative at the time stood up and made what I considered a rather intriguing statement. He declared that if Tweed were to expand, "property values would drop, 'the wrong kind of people' would move in, and the area would be 'another Newark'."

Let's break that down, shall we?

For starters, there was obviously no mention of "the environment." Okay, let's look at "property values." Historically, the Morris Cove section of the city and East Haven have always been the area's pocket of affordability. A kind of "bargain basement" for those taking flight from downtown and unable to afford Woodbridge, Orange, Guilford or Madison, so houses on the East Shore sold for less than more desirable suburban locales, with many of the houses near Tweed built in the postwar housing boom. Is the airport, which has been in operation since 1931, causing falling property values? If that were the case, we would be treated to story after story of people buying houses near Tweed, only to sell them at a loss later. To this day, no one---no one---has stepped forward to supply evidence of that happening. No one has presented two bills of sale, one for what they paid for the property, and one for what they sold it, with the first bill higher than the second. Maybe they didn't get the price they were asking, but they always walked away with a profit. Case in point, a Lighthouse Road home built in 1950, which the owner, an airport foe, bought in 2012 for $187,000, and sold ten years later for $350,000, a whopping 86.7 % profit!

Too, Tweed has seen jet service on and off since 1967. That's nearly 60 years of "victims" choosing to buy property near Tweed, whether they knew it or not an airport was there, lured by the low price.

As to "the wrong kind of people" moving in, at whom do you suppose that's directed? Airline pilots? Flight attendants? After all, they only work several days a month, so that would leave ample time for a spouse to have an "entanglement" with the neighbor while you're away. That must be it (wink, wink). Or did the state rep have someone else in mind?

And why Newark, a city with an international airport whose shortest runway is longer than Tweed's? Why not White Plains or Anaheim, which have airports similar in size and scope to New Haven? Or is it even about airports?

I think we pretty much know what the state rep meant by comparing New Haven to New Jersey's largest city. This was the first "New Haven-Newark" inference I remember hearing ...and it wouldn't be the last.

"The environment"? Hardly. Tweed's opponents have taken a page from Hitchcock, employing their own maguffin in advancing their own their agenda.

And while we're on the subject, I suspect that Hitchcock's "Gaslight" must have been a favorite of East Haven mayor Joe Carfora, in that he has all but walked back his April 2021 declaration of Tweed's new passenger terminal, to be "built by East Haven business and East Haven labor," after fifty Hawk protesters showed up in front of Town Hall. Now, Mayor Carfora has pivoted and chosen to side with Save The Sound in their appeal of the airport's Environmental Assessment.

Hitch would be proud.

Now, if you'll excuse me, mother is calling.