They Lived at the End of Logan's Runway. The 1972 Noise Law Exempted Aircraft.
The film of this episode premieres October 27, 2026 on YouTube. The documents, the transcript and the sources are below now.
In May 1973 the EPA sent a photographer named Michael Philip Manheim to one street in East Boston. He stayed until October and made a hundred photographs. Fifty-two of his captions name the same street: Neptune Road, which ran to the sea until Logan Airport was built over the end of it.
Transcript
Eighty-six
R001 NOISE METER, HELD AT LOGAN AIRPORT END OF NEPTUNE ROAD RECORDS OVER 86 DECIBELS
Michael Philip Manheim · June 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5963). View the original.
The needle says eighty-six. The man holding it works for the agency Congress had just put in charge of noise.
D01 NOISE METER, HELD AT LOGAN AIRPORT END OF NEPTUNE ROAD RECORDS OVER 86 DECIBELS
Michael Philip Manheim · June 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5963). View the original.
He is at the end of Neptune Road in East Boston, in June of nineteen seventy-three. Why the new law could not help this street is the whole of what follows.
R002 HOUSES ON NEPTUNE ROAD BORDER LOGAN AIRPORT RUNWAY 15R-33L DELTA FUEL FARM IN FOREGROUND
Michael Philip Manheim · May 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5950). View the original.
The street ends at a fence. Behind it is runway fifteen right, at Logan.
R003 NEAR LOGAN AIRPORT--AIRPLANE COMING IN FOR A LANDING OVER NEPTUNE ROAD HOMES
Michael Philip Manheim · May 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5961). View the original.
The photographer is Michael Philip Manheim. The Environmental Protection Agency sent him, and he made a hundred photographs here that summer.
Neptune Road
R004 NEPTUNE ROAD
Michael Philip Manheim · May 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5990). View the original.
Fifty-two of those hundred captions name one street.
R005 WELL KEPT THREE-FAMILY HOMES ON NEPTUNE ROAD. ONCE NEPTUNE ROAD ENDED AT WOOD ISLAND PARK AND THE SEA. NOW IT IS BOUNDED BY A FENCE AND THE LOGAN AIRPORT RUNWAY AREA
Michael Philip Manheim · May 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5983). View the original.
"Well kept three-family homes on Neptune Road," he wrote. "Once Neptune Road ended at Wood Island Park and the sea."
R008 WELL-KEPT BACKYARDS ARE THE RULE IN EAST BOSTON WHERE HOMEOWNERS TAKE GREAT PRIDE IN THEIR NEIGHBORHOOD
Michael Philip Manheim · June 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5955). View the original.
"Well-kept backyards are the rule in East Boston," the caption says, "where homeowners take great pride in their neighborhood."
R010 CHILDREN PLAY BALL IN FRONT OF THEIR HOMES ON NEPTUNE ROAD LOGAN AIRPORT IS AT THE END OF THE STREET. MANY OF THE CHILDREN'S PARENTS ARE INVOLVED IN CONTINUING EFFORTS TO HALT EXPANSION OF THE AIRPORT
Michael Philip Manheim · May 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-6810). View the original.
Children play ball in front of their homes. Many of their parents, he notes, are working to halt the expansion of the airport.
R012 ANTHONY BRUNO AND DAUGHTER SANDRA IN FRONT OF THEIR HOME AT 39 NEPTUNE ROAD NEAR LOGAN AIRPORT. THE BRUNOS LIVE IN THE SECOND FLOOR APARTMENT, RENT THE TWO OTHER APARTMENTS
Michael Philip Manheim · July 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5951). View the original.
Anthony Bruno taught law and economics at a high school in Cambridge. He lived at thirty-nine Neptune Road.
R013 THE ANTHONY BRUNOS AT DINNER IN THEIR WELL-KEPT HOME AT 39 NEPTUNE ROAD
Michael Philip Manheim · July 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5952). View the original.
The Brunos at dinner.
R015 MARY BRUNO HANGS LAUNDRY AT HER HOME AT 39 NEPTUNE ROAD AT HER RIGHT ARE FRANKFORT STREET HOMES. NEPTUNE ROAD, CLOSEST RESIDENTIAL AREA TO LOGAN AIRPORT, HAS SOME FIFTY HOMES, MANY OF THEM THREE-DECKER BUILDINGS HOUSING THREE FAMILIES EACH
Michael Philip Manheim · May 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5985). View the original.
Mary Bruno hangs the laundry. Neptune Road, the caption notes, has some fifty homes, many of them three-deckers.
R016 TWO LONG-TIME RESIDENTS OF NEPTUNE ROAD. MATHEW VIEIRA HAS LIVED HERE 53 OF HIS 60 YEARS. MARY BRUNO WAS BORN HERE
Michael Philip Manheim · May 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5995). View the original.
Matthew Vieira had lived here fifty-three of his sixty years. Mary Bruno was born here.
Where the street used to go
R018 ONCE NEPTUNE ROAD LED TO WOOD ISLAND PARK AND THE SEA. NOW IT IS BOUNDED BY A FENCE AND THE LOGAN AIRPORT RUNWAY AREA
Michael Philip Manheim · May 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5986). View the original.
Read that caption again. Once Neptune Road ended at Wood Island Park and the sea. Now it is bounded by a fence and the Logan Airport runway area.
R022 NEAR THE WOOD ISLAND STATION OF MBTA (METROPOLITAN BOSTON TRANSIT AUTHORITY)
Michael Philip Manheim · May 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-6002). View the original.
Wood Island Park was Frederick Law Olmsted's largest neighborhood park in East Boston. In nineteen sixty-seven it was cleared, part of seventy acres of recreation ground taken for the airport.
R019 MATTHEW VIEIRA STANDS IN THE VERY PLACE WHERE, SOME THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, HE TOOK THESE PICTURES OF HIS CHILDREN. AT THAT TIME THE AREA WAS WOOD ISLAND PARK (KNOWN EARLIER AS WORLD WAR I MEMORIAL PARK). SINCE THEN THE WATER HAS BEEN FILLED IN AND THE SITE HAS BECOME PART OF LOGAN AIRPORT
Michael Philip Manheim · June 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5964). View the original.
But the photographs know it. Matthew Vieira, the caption says, "stands in the very place where, some thirty-five years ago, he took these pictures of his children."
D02 MATTHEW VIEIRA STANDS IN THE VERY PLACE WHERE, SOME THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, HE TOOK THESE PICTURES OF HIS CHILDREN. AT THAT TIME THE AREA WAS WOOD ISLAND PARK (KNOWN EARLIER AS WORLD WAR I MEMORIAL PARK). SINCE THEN THE WATER HAS BEEN FILLED IN AND THE SITE HAS BECOME PART OF LOGAN AIRPORT
Michael Philip Manheim · June 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5964). View the original.
He is holding them up to the camera.
R020 20 YEARS AGO THE MBTA (METROPOLITAN BOSTON TRANSIT AUTHORITY) LINE FROM REVERE TO BOSTON WAS ALLOWED TO GO ABOVE GROUND AT NEPTUNE ROAD. FRANKFORT STREET AND ITS AIR-RELATED INDUSTRIAL TRAFFIC IS AT RIGHT
Michael Philip Manheim · May 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5992). View the original.
Twenty years earlier the transit line from Revere had been allowed above ground here. It cut the street in two.
R029 LOOKING TO THE NORTHWEST FROM THE CENTER OF NEPTUNE ROAD
Michael Philip Manheim · May 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5998). View the original.
By nineteen seventy-three the street had lost its park, its shoreline and its middle. What it still had was the noise — and eight months earlier, Congress had passed a law about exactly that.
October 27, 1972
October twenty-seventh, nineteen seventy-two. Public Law ninety-two, five hundred seventy-four. An act to control the emission of noise detrimental to the human environment.
Section two declares the policy of the United States: to promote an environment for all Americans free from noise that jeopardizes their health or welfare.
Except aircraft
A few inches down the same page, the definitions. Section three. The term "product" means any manufactured article or goods or component thereof — except that such term does not include, and then a list.
R024 NEAR LOGAN AIRPORT--AIRPLANE COMING IN FOR A LANDING OVER NEPTUNE ROAD BACKYARDS
Michael Philip Manheim · May 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5960). View the original.
A. Any aircraft, aircraft engine, propeller, or appliance.
R025 A JET FLIES OVER NEPTUNE ROAD
Michael Philip Manheim · May 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5996). View the original.
The Noise Control Act does not regulate aircraft. It says so on its first page, before it has regulated anything at all.
Aircraft got their own section, and a different rule. EPA may submit proposed regulations to the Federal Aviation Administration.
R026 APPROACHING LOGAN AIRPORT. (FROM THE SITES EXHIBITION. FOR OTHER IMAGES IN THIS ASSIGNMENT, SEE FICHE NUMBERS 100, 101, 114.)
Michael Philip Manheim · May 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-11429). View the original.
The FAA must publish them and hold a hearing. Then the FAA may do one of three things.
Adopt them. Modify them. Or publish in the Federal Register a notice that it is not prescribing any regulation in response to EPA's submission.
R027 JET ZOOMS OVER SOUTHWESTERN SIDE OF NEPTUNE ROAD
Michael Philip Manheim · May 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5997). View the original.
If EPA objects, it may ask the FAA to reconsider. The FAA reports back. There is no further step. The environmental agency's power over the loudest machine in the country was the power to ask twice.
Harass industry
Why the exemption? A congressman said it out loud on the House floor, and the Supreme Court later quoted him.
R028 LOOKING NORTHEAST TOWARD THE NEPTUNE ROAD AREA--AIRPLANE DESCENDING FOR LANDING AT LOGAN AIRPORT
Michael Philip Manheim · May 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5958). View the original.
Harley Staggers chaired the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce. He could not speak for industry's intentions, he told the House, but he could speak for his own.
"We have evidence that across America some cities and States are trying to pass noise regulations. Certainly we do not want that to happen. It would harass industry and progress in America. That is the reason why I want to get this bill passed during this session."
R032 THESE POINT SHIRLEY HOMES ON WINTROP SHORE DRIVE ARE IN LANDING PATTERN FOR LOGAN AIRPORT'S RUNWAY 27
Michael Philip Manheim · Oct. 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5982). View the original.
The chairman's stated purpose for the noise law was to stop cities from passing noise laws. Seven months later the Supreme Court agreed with him.
May 14, 1973
City of Burbank against Lockheed Air Terminal. Argued the twentieth of February, nineteen seventy-three. Decided the fourteenth of May.
R030 FROM THE REAR PORCH OF HIS HOME AT THE SOUTHERN CORNER OF NEPTUNE AND LOVELL STREETS, LARRY VIENZA WATCHES JET TAKE OFF FROM RUNWAY 15R-33L. ONCE AIRBORNE, THE JET WILL FLY DIRECTLY OVER HIS HOUSE
Michael Philip Manheim · May 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-6000). View the original.
Sixty-three of Manheim's hundred photographs were made in May of nineteen seventy-three. He was on this street the month the case came down.
R049 LOOKING SOUTHEAST OVER LOGAN AIRPORT AREA. THE LARGE NUMBER OF OIL STORAGE TANKS UNDER JET FLIGHT PATHS CAUSES GREAT CONCERN TO AREA RESIDENTS
Michael Philip Manheim · June 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5966). View the original.
Burbank, California had banned jet takeoffs between eleven at night and seven in the morning. Five to four, the Court struck the ordinance down.
Justice Douglas wrote it, quoting a district judge named Dooling: "The aircraft and its noise are indivisible; the noise of the aircraft extends outward from it with the same inseparability as its wings and tail assembly."
R031 MARY BRUNO HOLDS HER EARS AGAINST NOISE OF JET COMING IN FOR A LANDING ON RUNWAY 15R AT LOGAN AIRPORT. 39 NEPTUNE ROAD, THE BRUNOS' HOME, IS THE WHITE-FRONTED BUILDING IN THE BACKGROUND
Michael Philip Manheim · May 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5994). View the original.
To exclude the noise from the town is to exclude the aircraft. And excluding aircraft is a federal question.
So no city and no state could set a limit on how loud an airplane was allowed to be over its houses. That power sat in Washington, which had written itself the option of declining to use it.
R050 FROM A HILL AT ORIENT HEIGHTS NEAR THE NORTHERN (REVERE) BOUNDARY OF EAST BOSTON, ANTHONY BRUNO, JOHN BRIGANTI, AND JOSEPH PORZIO POINT OUT HOW LOGAN AIRPORT DOMINATES THE LANDSCAPE
Michael Philip Manheim · May 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-6796). View the original.
Justice Rehnquist dissented, with Stewart, White and Marshall. It made no difference to this street.
The proprietor
R065 LOOKING NORTH FROM LOGAN AIRPORT'S 16TH FLOOR OBSERVATION DECK. NEPTUNE ROAD HOMES AT LEFT AND CENTER, IN FRONT OF OIL TANKS
Michael Philip Manheim · Sept. 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5949). View the original.
But there is a footnote, and the question it leaves open is why the rest of this street's history went the way it did.
Airport owners acting as proprietors, it noted, can presently deny the use of their airports to aircraft on the basis of noise. And then its own line — we do not consider here what limits, if any, apply to a municipality as a proprietor.
R051 JOHN VITAGLIANO, MANAGER OF THE EAST BOSTON LITTLE CITY HALL AND CHAIRMAN OF THE WINTHROP NOISE ABATEMENT COMMITTEE, POINTS OUT ON AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH THE SECTION OF NEPTUNE ROAD AND LOGAN AIRPORT RUNWAY 15R-33L THAT HE IS FACING, LOOKING SOUTHEAST DOWN NEPTUNE ROAD
Michael Philip Manheim · June 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5956). View the original.
One body still had power over the noise at Logan Airport. The body that owned Logan Airport.
R057 LOGAN AIRPORT--CONSTRUCTION OF NEW TERMINAL. EAST BOSTON RESIDENTS COMPLAIN THAT THE HEAVY TRUCKS EMPLOYED BY TAX FREE MASSPORT (MASSACHUSETTS PORT AUTHORITY) DAMAGE ROADS MAINTAINED BY THEIR TAX MONEY
Michael Philip Manheim · Sept. 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5944). View the original.
The Massachusetts Port Authority. Massport. Its name is in ten of Manheim's captions, never once as a source of quiet.
The ears
R033 CAROLYN BROBREK IN LIVING ROOM OF HER HOME AT 99 COWPER STREET WHERE, IN OCTOBER 1969, SHE FELT HER EARS POP WHEN A JET TOOK OFF. IT WAS DISCOVERED THAT A BONE IN THE INNER EAR HAD BROKEN CORRECTIVE WORK WAS DONE BUT SHE STILL HAS A 15-20% HEARING LOSS IN HER RIGHT EAR
Michael Philip Manheim · July 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5972). View the original.
Carolyn Brobrek, at ninety-nine Cowper Street. In October of nineteen sixty-nine she felt her ears pop when a jet took off. A bone in her inner ear had broken. She still had a twenty percent hearing loss on that side.
R035 DR. EPSTEIN OF THE PARIS STREET CLINIC EXAMINES DONNA DELANEY'S EARS. IT HAS BEEN FOUND THAT DONNA HAS TWO KINDS OF HEARING LOSS, ONE OF WHICH IS RELATED TO EXCESSIVE NOISE
Michael Philip Manheim · June 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5976). View the original.
Doctor Epstein of the Paris Street Clinic examines Donna Delaney's ears. Donna has two kinds of hearing loss, the caption says, one of them related to excessive noise.
R036 MARY STACK, REFUGEE FROM THE LOGAN AIRPORT AREA OF EAST BOSTON. EVEN THE WEARING OF EAR GUARDS BROUGHT NO RELIEF FROM TENSIONS CAUSED BY AIRCRAFT NOISE. NOW 10 MILES NORTH IN SAUGUS MARY STACK'S HOME IS OCCASIONALLY SHAKEN BY AIRCRAFT VIBRATIONS
Michael Philip Manheim · June 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5973). View the original.
Mary Stack is described as a refugee from the Logan Airport area. Even the wearing of ear guards brought no relief.
R037 MARY STACK, ONCE OF EAST BOSTON, (LOGAN AIRPORT AREA) NOW LIVES SOME 10 MILES NORTH IN SAUGUS. SHE DEMONSTRATES EAR GUARDS THAT DID NOT BRING SUFFICIENT RELIEF FROM TENSIONS CAUSED BY AIRCRAFT NOISE, AND SHOWS CLIPPING OF HER MEETING WITH MAYOR KEVIN WHITE
Michael Philip Manheim · June 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5974). View the original.
She moved ten miles north to Saugus, where her home is still shaken by aircraft. She is holding a clipping from her meeting with the mayor of Boston.
D03 MARY STACK, ONCE OF EAST BOSTON, (LOGAN AIRPORT AREA) NOW LIVES SOME 10 MILES NORTH IN SAUGUS. SHE DEMONSTRATES EAR GUARDS THAT DID NOT BRING SUFFICIENT RELIEF FROM TENSIONS CAUSED BY AIRCRAFT NOISE, AND SHOWS CLIPPING OF HER MEETING WITH MAYOR KEVIN WHITE
Michael Philip Manheim · June 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5974). View the original.
The headline on her clipping: other mayors have taken the side of Logan's opponents.
R038 92 YEAR OLD JAMES MORSE OF LOVELL STREET TELLS ANTHONY BRUNO OF NEARBY NEPTUNE ROAD HOW AIRPLANE VIBRATIONS TWICE KNOCKED OVER HIS TELEPHONE, ONCE KNOCKED HIM OUT OF BED. NEPTUNE ROAD AND LOVELL STREET ARE PART OF THE RESIDENTIAL COMMUNITY CLOSEST TO LOGAN AIRPORT. MR. MORSE HAS LIVED AT HIS PRESENT ADDRESS FOR OVER 60 YEARS
Michael Philip Manheim · May 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-6805). View the original.
James Morse was ninety-two, and had lived on Lovell Street for over sixty years.
R039 ANTHONY BRUNO (LEFT) WITH 92 YEAR-OLD JAMES MORSE, RESIDENTS OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD CLOSEST TO LOGAN AIRPORT. THEY ARE STANDING ON LOVELL STREET OUTSIDE THE HOUSE WHERE MR. MORSE HAS LIVED FOR OVER 60 YEARS. MR. BRUNO IS POINTING TO A SIDING WHICH BOTH MEN BELIEVE--BUT CANNOT PROVE--WAS LOOSENED BY AIRPLANE VIBRATIONS
Michael Philip Manheim · May 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-6806). View the original.
Airplane vibrations, he told Anthony Bruno, had twice knocked over his telephone and once knocked him out of bed. Bruno points at the siding. Both men believe, but cannot prove, that the vibration loosened it.
R040 BERNARD PICARELLO IN THE SOUNDPROOFED DEN OF HIS HOME AT 112 MOORE STREET. AIRPLANES COMING IN TO LAND ON RUNWAY 15L-33R DESCEND RIGHT OVER HIS STREET
Michael Philip Manheim · June 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5967). View the original.
Cannot prove. Manheim wrote that down too. Bernard Picarello, at one hundred twelve Moore Street, had soundproofed a den in his own house.
R041 BERNARD PICARELLO IN BATHROOM OF HIS HOME AT 112 MOORE STREET. HE BLAMES CRACK IN BATHROOM TILE ON AIRCRAFT VIBRATION. HIS HOME IS DIRECTLY UNDER A LOGAN AIRPORT FLIGHT PATH
Michael Philip Manheim · July 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5970). View the original.
He blames the crack in the bathroom tile on aircraft vibration.
R043 BERNARD PICARELLO TOUCHES STEEL BEAM HE INSTALLED IN 1967 WHEN THE ORIGINAL 8X8 WOODEN BEAM (SHOWN BEHIND HIM) BEGAN TO CRACK. THE PICARELLO HOME AT 112 MOORE STREET IS DIRECTLY UNDER A LOGAN AIRPORT FLIGHT PATH. MR. PICARELLO BELIEVES AIRCRAFT VIBRATION CAUSED THE DAMAGE
Michael Philip Manheim · July 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5969). View the original.
In nineteen sixty-seven the original eight-by-eight wooden beam in his basement began to crack, and he put in a steel one.
R044 BASEMENT OF THE BERNARD PICARELLO HOME AT 112 MOORE STREET MR. PICARELLO POINTS OUT PUMP HE HAD TO INSTALL WHEN, IN LOGAN AIRPORT EXPANSION, MASSPORT (MASSACHUSETTS PORT AUTHORITY) FILLED AN INLET AND DEPRIVED THEM OF NATURAL DRAINAGE
Michael Philip Manheim · July 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5968). View the original.
And a pump — because when Massport filled an inlet during the airport expansion, the water came into his basement instead.
Within sight and sound
R045 CONSTITUTION BEACH--WITHIN SIGHT AND SOUND OF LOGAN AIRPORT'S TAKEOFF RUNWAY 22R
Michael Philip Manheim · July 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5977). View the original.
A mile away, the same summer, Manheim wrote one phrase over and over. Constitution Beach — within sight and sound of Logan Airport's takeoff runway twenty-two right.
Sixteen million
While he worked, the agency owed Congress a report. The Court had noted the deadline in Burbank itself: nine months from enactment.
Nine months from the twenty-seventh of October, nineteen seventy-two, is the twenty-seventh of July, nineteen seventy-three. EPA delivered on the day.
R061 MBTA (METROPOLITAN BOSTON TRANSIT AUTHORITY) TRAIN ROARS PAST NORTHEASTERN SIDE OF NEPTUNE ROAD
Michael Philip Manheim · May 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5993). View the original.
A second report went up the same month, on aircraft and airport noise. It opened with a count.
The aviation noise problem, it says, had grown to major proportions. Approximately sixteen —
— million persons are presently impacted by aviation noise in the United States. The adverse effects of this noise range from annoyance to the possibility of hearing damage.
R067 NEIGHBORHOOD YOUNGSTERS IN THE PLAYGROUND ADJACENT TO LOGAN AIRPORT AT THE END OF NEPTUNE ROAD. BEYOND THE FENCE IS THE SOUTHEAST RUNWAY
Michael Philip Manheim · May 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-6788). View the original.
Sixteen million people. And at the end of that same passage, EPA asks Congress for the one thing the Supreme Court had removed ten weeks earlier.
A federal program, it says, that effectively combines federal controls on aircraft with the noise control options available to airport operators and local jurisdictions.
Fifty-five
Then, in March of nineteen seventy-four, EPA published the number.
R064 TRADITIONAL THREE-DECKER HOMES OF NEPTUNE ROAD WERE ONCE PROUD SHOWPLACES ALONG A STREET WHICH RAN TO THE SEA. NOW IT TERMINATES IN THE FILLED LAND OF LOGAN AIRPORT, AND RESIDENTS FACE A CONSTANT BATTLE AGAINST NOISE, POLLUTION, AND OTHER ENCROACHMENTS ON THEIR LIVING SPACE. WHITE HOUSE IN CENTER BELONGS TO ANTHONY BRUNO, TEACHER AND A LEADING SPOKESMAN FOR THE COMMUNITY'S PROBLEMS
Michael Philip Manheim · May 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-6801). View the original.
Undue interference with activity and annoyance will not occur, it concluded, if outdoor levels are maintained at an energy equivalent of fifty-five decibels, and indoor levels at forty-five.
That fifty-five is a day-and-night average across twenty-four hours. The eighty-six on Manheim's meter is one aircraft going over. They are different measurements and this film will not pretend they are the same.
But EPA drew a chart of the averages and marked real places on it. Near the top of the scale: a house three-quarters of a mile from touchdown at a major airport.
R066 SMALL PLAYGROUND AT RUNWAY END OF NEPTUNE ROAD. TRUCKS TRAVEL SERVICE ROAD ON OTHER SIDE OF FENCE
Michael Philip Manheim · May 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-6001). View the original.
Neptune Road did not end three-quarters of a mile from touchdown. It ended at the fence.
The same document counted how many Americans lived above those levels, by cause.
From aircraft alone: sixteen million above sixty. Seven and a half million above sixty-five. Three point four million above seventy.
R063 PEELING PAINT ON THIS NEPTUNE ROAD HOUSE TYPIFIES NEGLECT OF EXTERIOR HOME MAINTENANCE BY RESIDENTS OF THIS NEIGHBORHOOD INTERIORS, HOWEVER ARE WELL KEPT UP. NEPTUNE ROAD BORDERS IMMEDIATELY UPON LOGAN AIRPORT. RESIDENTS DO NOT FEEL THAT THE EXPENSE OF COMPLETE MAINTENANCE IS JUSTIFIED, WHEN THEY COULD LOSE THEIR HOMES TO MASSPORT (MASSACHUSETTS PORT AUTHORITY) AT A FRACTION OF THEIR VALUE
Michael Philip Manheim · May 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-6803). View the original.
The agency had the measurements, the criteria, the count and the photographs. What it did not have was the authority.
The owner's offer
R052 RESIDENTS REACT TO NOTICE OF LANDLORDS' MEETING POSTED IN MARKET WINDOW AND CALLED BY MASSPORT (MASSACHUSETTS PORT AUTHORITY), WHICH OWNS AND OPERATES LOGAN AIRPORT. PURPOSE IS TO DISCUSS SALE OF HOMES TO MASSPORT
Michael Philip Manheim · June 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5965). View the original.
The authority belonged to the proprietor, and the proprietor had an offer. A notice in a market window: a landlords' meeting called by Massport, to discuss sale of homes to Massport.
R060 MASSPORT (MASSACHUSETTS PORT AUTHORITY) WORKERS PUT UP FENCE AROUND LOT ACQUIRED BY MASSPORT ON THE SOUTHWESTERN SIDE OF NEPTUNE ROAD. HOUSES ON LOT HAD BEEN TORN DOWN. YOUNGSTERS SCATTERED LEFTOVER GRAVEL, AND THE AREA BECAME A DANGER AS WELL AS AN EYESORE. FENCE WAS REQUESTED BY MATTHEW VIEIRA, LONG-TIME NEPTUNE ROAD RESIDENT
Michael Philip Manheim · May 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-6782). View the original.
Massport workers fence a lot on the southwestern side of Neptune Road. The houses on it had already been torn down.
The office
R070 LOGAN AIRPORT AREA. CHILDREN PLAY IN NEPTUNE COURT, WHICH IS BOUNDED BY THE NOW UNUSED RAMPS OF THE WOOD ISLAND TRAINS STATION BUSSES ONCE SWUNG AROUND THESE RAMPS, TO TURN AND HEAD BACK FOR BENNINGTON STREET, THE MAIN ROAD OF EAST BOSTON
Michael Philip Manheim · May 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-6785). View the original.
Massport bought the street. Sixty-six homes came down. A hundred and seventy-eight families left.
In September of nineteen eighty-two, EPA closed its Office of Noise Abatement and Control, assuming state and local programs would carry the work on. Eight years later it paid for a study to find out whether that was true.
The decision to discontinue all aspects of the program, it found, has created a situation where regulations still in effect are unenforceable.
At the present time, there is no one to whom states or municipalities can turn for advice or help in the noise control field.
The Act was never repealed. In two thousand nine, proposing a rule under it, EPA had to explain in the Federal Register why nobody was collecting the reports. Due to the closure of the Agency's Office of Noise Abatement and Control.
Stones where the houses stood
R072 NEPTUNE ROAD AND FRANKFORT STREET. MBTA (METROPOLITAN BOSTON TRANSIT AUTHORITY) PEDESTRIAN BRIDGE IN BACKGROUND FRANKFORT STREET PROVIDES ACCESS TO A NUMBER OF AIRPORT AND AIR INDUSTRY BUILDINGS
Michael Philip Manheim · May 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5991). View the original.
In twenty fifteen Massport opened a two-acre park where Neptune Road had been, with stones marking where the houses stood. Its chief executive said they were there to celebrate a hundred and seventy-eight families and sixty-six homes.
R001 NOISE METER, HELD AT LOGAN AIRPORT END OF NEPTUNE ROAD RECORDS OVER 86 DECIBELS
Michael Philip Manheim · June 1973 · U.S. National Archives, DOCUMERICA (412-DA-5963). View the original.
A hundred photographs survive because an agency with no authority over aircraft sent a man to photograph an aircraft problem anyway. It could not make this street quieter. It could only write down, carefully, what it was like to live here.
Sources
- Manheim, DOCUMERICA, May–Oct. 1973 — 100 frames, NARA RG 412, series 412-DA. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/542493
- NARA records the series `useRestriction: Unrestricted` and `accessRestriction: Unrestricted`, with no qualifying note. Clearance reasoning and its one honest caveat: `research/documerica-atlas/RIGHTS.md`.
- Manheim waived copyright, "a project requirement" — SEJournal. https://www.sej.org/publications/sejournal/documerica-lost-and-found
- This is period colour film. Nothing in this episode has been colorized and there is no AI-generated imagery in it.
- ⚠️ Frames 412-DA-5999 and 412-DA-11429 are two takes of the same subject; only one is used in the film.
- Noise Control Act of 1972, Pub. L. 92-574, 86 Stat. 1234 — §2(b), §3(3)(A), §7/§611(c). https://archive.org/details/sim_united-states-united-states-statutes-at-large_1972_86 - § 2(b), 86 Stat. 1234: "The Congress declares that it is the policy of the United States to promote an environment for all Americans free from noise that jeopardizes their health or welfare." - § 3(3), 86 Stat. 1234: "The term 'product' means any manufactured article or goods or component thereof; except that such term does not include— (A) any aircraft, aircraft engine, propeller, or appliance, as such terms are defined in section 101 of the Federal Aviation Act of 1958". - § 7(b), adding Federal Aviation Act § 611(c)(1), 86 Stat. 1239–40: EPA "shall submit to the FAA proposed regulations"; the FAA shall publish them within thirty days and commence a hearing within sixty; and may then prescribe them, modify them, or "(B) publish in the Federal Register a notice that it is not prescribing any regulation in response to EPA's submission of proposed regulations, together with a detailed explanation providing reasons for the decision not to prescribe such regulations." - § 611(c)(2): EPA "may request the FAA to review, and report to EPA on, the advisability of prescribing the regulation originally proposed by EPA." The section provides no step beyond that request and the FAA's report.
- City of Burbank v. Lockheed Air Terminal, 411 U.S. 624 (May 14, 1973). https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep411/usrep411624/usrep411624.pdf - Holding (syllabus, 411 U.S. 624): "In light of the pervasive nature of the scheme of federal regulation of aircraft noise, as reaffirmed and reinforced by the Noise Control Act of 1972, the Federal Aviation Administration, now in conjunction with the Environmental Protection Agency, has full control over aircraft noise, pre-empting state and local control." - 411 U.S. 628, quoting Dooling, J., in *American Airlines v. Hempstead*, 272 F. Supp. 226, 230: "The aircraft and its noise are indivisible; the noise of the aircraft extends outward from it with the same inseparability as its wings and tail assembly; to exclude the aircraft noise from the Town is to exclude the aircraft." - 411 U.S. 636–37, quoting Rep. Harley Staggers, Chairman of the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, 118 Cong. Rec. 37083: "We have evidence that across America some cities and States are trying to pass noise regulations. Certainly we do not want that to happen. It would harass industry and progress in America. That is the reason why I want to get this bill passed during this session." - 411 U.S. 635–36 n.14, quoting the Secretary of Transportation's letter as approved in the Senate Report: "Airport owners acting as proprietors can presently deny the use of their airports to aircraft on the basis of noise considerations so long as such exclusion is nondiscriminatory." And the Court's own reservation: "We do not consider here what limits, if any, apply to a municipality as a proprietor." - 411 U.S. 640: "We are not at liberty to diffuse the powers given by Congress to FAA and EPA by letting the States or municipalities in on the planning. If that change is to be made, Congress alone must do it." - 411 U.S. 628 n.4 and text: the Court states EPA's § 7(a) reporting deadline as "within nine months, i.e., by July 1973."
- EPA, Public Health and Welfare Criteria for Noise, 550/9-73-002, July 27, 1973. https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPDF.cgi?Dockey=9101ASJX.PDF
- EPA, Report to Congress on Aircraft/Airport Noise, 100R73020, July 1973. https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPDF.cgi?Dockey=930012OF.PDF - pp. 6–7: "the aviation noise problem had, because of a combination of the wide variety of influences, grown to major proportions by the time of the 1971, Title IV, EPA Report on Noise. Approximately 16 million persons are presently impacted by aviation noise in the United States… The adverse effects of this noise range from annoyance to the possibility of hearing damage." ⚠️ The sentence is split across a page turn: "Approximately 16" ends p. 6 and "million persons" opens p. 7. Both plates are on screen and the split is deliberate, not an error. - p. 7: "if noise levels protective of the public health and welfare are to be achieved around the Nation's airports in the near future, it will be necessary to establish a Federal regulatory program which effectively combines Federal controls on aircraft flight procedures, technology, and noise control options available to airport operators and local jurisdictions."
- EPA, Levels of Environmental Noise Requisite to Protect Public Health and Welfare, 550/9-74-004, March 1974. https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPDF.cgi?Dockey=2000L3LN.PDF - p. 6: "undue interference with activity and annoyance will not occur if outdoor levels are maintained at an energy equivalent of 55 dB and indoor levels at 45 dB." - Figure 1, p. 20: outdoor day-night sound level at various locations. "LOS ANGELES — 3/4 MILE FROM TOUCH DOWN AT MAJOR AIRPORT" sits near the top of the scale; "BOSTON — ROW HOUSING ON MAJOR AVENUE" at about 70. - Table B-2, p. B-5: estimated cumulative millions in U.S. urban areas exposed above the stated outdoor Ldn. Aircraft operations: 16.0 above 60; 7.5 above 65; 3.4 above 70; 1.5 above 75; 0.2 above 80. The same 16.0 figure appears in the July 1973 report to Congress, above.
- September 1982 — EPA closed its Office of Noise Abatement and Control.
- EPA, Status of Key State and Local Noise Control Programs … Discontinuing a Federal Program in 1982, 400990002, Jan. 1990. https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPDF.cgi?Dockey=91024D1N.PDF - Executive summary, p. S-3: "The results of this study suggest that state and local noise control programs have not lived up to these expectations." — "the decision to discontinue all aspects of the program, in 1982, has created a situation where regulations still in effect are unenforceable." — "At the present time, there is no one to whom states or municipalities can turn to for advice and/or help in the noise control field." - ⚠️ This study twice calls it "the 1971 Noise Control Act." The Act is of 1972; the slip is the study's, and the crop used on screen stops before it.
- 74 Fed. Reg. 39150, 39172 (Aug. 5, 2009), EPA, Doc. E9-18003. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2009-08-05/pdf/E9-18003.pdf
- Wood Island Park (Olmsted), cleared 1967 — Leventhal Map & Education Center, Boston Public Library. https://www.leventhalmap.org/articles/olmsted-to-airport-east-boston-and-urban-development/ The photographs carry it independently: 412-DA-5977 ("ONCE NEPTUNE ROAD LED TO WOOD ISLAND PARK AND THE SEA. NOW IT IS BOUNDED BY A FENCE AND THE LOGAN AIRPORT RUNWAY AREA") and 412-DA-5964 (Matthew Vieira holding photographs he took of his children on that ground thirty-five years earlier).
- 66 homes razed, 178 families displaced; the park opened July 10, 2015 — WBUR. https://www.wbur.org/news/2015/07/10/new-east-boston-park-neptune-road
- ⚠️ A widely repeated account (36 trees felled in five minutes on April 23, 1969) is not used in this episode — no primary or institutional source for it was located.