Thank You And God Bless You, Toni Harp

The year was 1934 and New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia boarded a plane in Chicago to return home.

The airliner lifted off and a few hours later landed at the Newark Airport. Everyone deplaned except the mayor.

Demanding an explanation, The Little Flower was told that Newark was where the plane terminated.

"My ticket says 'New York,' and I'm flying to New York!" he bellowed.

The plane took off again, flying across the Hudson River and touching down at Brooklyn's Floyd Bennett Field.

It wasn't long after that La Guardia set in motion construction of a commercial airport for New York City, and in 1939, the New York Municipal Airport (which would later bear the mayor's name) was dedicated.

It's not surprising that a number of cities name their airports or passenger terminals after those who were instrumental in their progress; La Guardia, of course, Hartsfield (now Hartsfield-Jackson) Airport in Atlanta, McCarren (now Harry Reid) Airport in Las Vegas. Los Angeles has a terminal building dedicated to former mayor Tom Bradley.

New Haven's airport was named after John H. Tweed. Mr. Tweed was not a public office holder. Rather, he was the airport's first manager and something of an aviation pioneer in the New Haven area. According to legend, he picked out the site where the airport was to be built. Originally the New Haven Municipal Airport, it was renamed in his honor in 1961, just weeks before his passing.

I say all this because when it comes to their city's airport, New Haven's mayors (with two exceptions) were not exactly visionaries.

New Haven's airport was dedicated on August 30th, 1931, with commercial airline service following shortly afterward.

Now you have to remember that there were nowhere near the houses surrounding the airport then as there are now, which gave Jack Tweed an idea. He approached then-mayor John "Step-And-A-Half" Murphy with an ambitious proposal. "Buy all the land," Tweed said. "Build to the water. Don't let any houses go up." Mr. Tweed had plans for two 6,000-foot runways (and this was in the 1940s!).

Murphy thought he was daft. After all, what would we possibly need all that runway for when the DC-3s operating out of there were doing just fine. Besides, we had the New Haven Railroad, which was carrying far more passengers out of New Haven than any airline could.

So, Murphy didn't act, and after the end of World War II, the houses did start going up, with plenty of opportunities for the real estate community. (Was it any wonder that Democrat Party boss Art Barbieri's two businesses were real estate and insurance? Moreover, Mr. Barbieri lived in the Annex neighborhood.)

It was under the administration of William Celentano that needed improvements began to come to the airport, but alas, by the time those were started, Celentano lost his reelection bid to Richard C. Lee in 1953.

Ah, Dick Lee, the very personification of "urban renewal." A man who took full advantage of the Federal government's "Model Cities" program by securing loads of federal funds under John F. Kennedy. Among his landmark projects were the Route 34 connector, which was supposed to go out to the Maltby Lakes, but wound up a dead end in downtown New Haven, and the New Haven Colisseum, since consigned to the dustbin of history.

As for Tweed, the mayor's vision was a simple one: helicopter service to the New York City airports, which would have worked out fine, had there been any private helicopter companies to oblige. (Pilgrim Airlines, which operated out of Tweed in the 1960s and 70s, did provide service to Kennedy and La Guardia, pretty much fulfilling Lee's vision.)

But then something happened that Mayor Lee hadn't anticipated.

In 1967, Eastern Air Lines, which, up to that time had been flying propeller-driven aircraft, introduced 727 and DC-9 jet service to Tweed. The jet age had come upon New Haven, making the airport's 4,700-foot runway woefully inadequate. They would need a longer runway to comply.

Needless to say, this didn't sit well not only with the residents around the airport, many of whom bought the houses that went up as a result of Mayor Murphy's intransigence, but also with the neighboring town of East Haven. The war had begun.

As the 1960s gave way to the 1970s, New Haven's mayors mostly sat on their hands as the legal battles made their way through the courts, with the airport subsequently winning in its endeavor to extend Runway 2-20 to 5,600 feet. The airport also gained an Instrument Landing System, but only after an Allegheny Airlines plane crashed while attempting to land in fog, costing 28 innocents their lives in 1971.

The 1980s became the era of Biagio "Ben" DiLieto, the city's former police chief.

The mayor set about reviving the city's dilapidated train station, which had been reduced to a corridor with a ticket office or two, and by the time he left office, New Haven had a world-class train station/transportation center, the envy of any U. S. city.

However, the city's airport did not enjoy the same renaissance.

There are a number of reasons for this.

One was that DiLieto was afraid to fly, opting instead to take the train just about anywhere he went.

Another was that, like Democrat strongman Art Barbieri, DiLieto also lived in the Annex neighborhood, his house having a commanding view of Runway 2-20.

And finally, there was his administration's "public-private partnership" with developer Joel Schiavone, whose projects included reviving the city's Schubert Theater and the Taft Hotel. Call it a coincidence, but Mr. Schiavone's cash cow in funding his projects was a little entity he owned called Connecticut Limousine.

Think about it: Where was the money to be made? Schlepping people 75 to 90 miles out to Queens? Or five miles to Tweed?

So, it should come as no surprise that in 1983, Mayor DiLieto reached an "agreement" with East Haven mayor Tony Proto, recognizing Tweed as a "commuter" airport (which is to say Pilgrim Airlines-like operations), including the construction of a new passenger terminal. (There's a bit of irony here; while making peace with East Haven, DiLieto was at war with the town of North Haven as they proposed building a shopping mall which would have heavily impacted the mayor's plans to do the same downtown.)

Guess what happened.

United Airlines expressed interest in starting 737 service from Tweed to Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. Yes, there were still airlines that considered Tweed a lucrative place in which to bring jet service. This brought about accusations from airport neighbors of the city breaking the agreement.

Not surprisingly, Mayor DiLieto opposed it, siding with Mayor Proto.

Oh, and the proposed new terminal? That was never built. Obviously, there was no outrage over that part of the agreement not being followed.

It would be eight years before United would bring their Chicago service to New Haven. By then John Daniels was mayor, and he boarded the inaugural flight from New Haven to O'Hare. Entering O'Hare's terminal, Daniels was heard to exclaim, "Now this is an airport!"

Enough to inspire Daniels to bring his own city's airport up to speed? Apparently not.

Daniels was succeeded by John DeStefano, who served as Economic Development Administrator in Ben DiLieto's administration and, like DiLieto, also had East Shore ties.

It was during DeStefano's tenure that the airport was engaged in a serious legal battle with East Haven over the installation of runway "overruns," which could safely stop an aircraft, if need be. The airport was in a fortunate position of having the Federal Aviation Administration paying 95% of their legal bills while the town enjoyed no such luxury, their plea to the state for the same having been rejected.

DeStefano, channeling his inner Neville Chamberlain, decided to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, finishing the job his boss started by producing an agreement with rookie mayor April Capone, this one brokered by mediator Charlie Pillsbury. (Mr. Pillsbury, scion of the food family, ran for the state's Third District as a Socialist candidate.)

The result was an agreement which limited Runway 2-20 to 5,600 feet. limited departures to 30 per day, limited passenger boardings to 180,000 and limited parking to 700 spaces.

DeStefano had in effect throttled Tweed's two main sources of revenue: Passenger Facilities Charges (paid for by enplaning passengers) and parking revenues.

Bear in mind that DeStefano had on his failed gubernatorial campaign a local businessman and Morris Cove resident who stated publicly in the New Haven Register that "Tweed Airport has no business in the Morris Cove!"

And there Tweed stood for the next decade, wholly dependent on taxpayer largesse.

To make matters worse, during this time the airport saw not one, but two private plane crashes, killing four people, one of them a child. The agreement was literally fatally flawed.

Enter Toni Harp, who rode to the rescue by exercising a clause stating that either municipality was free to withdraw from the agreement with thirty days' notice. Indeed, Harp served notice to East Haven mayor Joe Maturo, and along with a successful court challenge by the airport annulling the state statute limiting Runway 2-20, the airport was free to move forward. When you consider Avelo Airlines' boarding figures are far in excess of the 180,000-passenger limit, and Tweed's lot of more than 700 cars routinely full, you see how crucial it was that the agreement be terminated.

At about this time, Avports, a private airport management firm, expressed interest in running Tweed, thus removing it from city subsidy. A 43-year agreement was reached, and the airport was no longer feeding from the public trough. The city was freed from most if not all airport-related operations, with current mayor Justin Elicker serving as little more than an airport cheerleader.

And, with the airport's Environmental Assessment recently receiving FAA approval, plans are in the works to extend Runway 2-20 to at least 6,500 feet, and for construction of a new 70,000 square-foot passenger terminal on the east side of the field, complete with a 4,000-car parking area.

I would like to see the airport always keep the name of Jack Tweed, a true visionary.

But I also hope to see the William Celentano Drive leading up to the Toni Harp Passenger Terminal.

Thank you, Toni Harp, and God bless you.