Airport park targeted for completion in summer ’13

Park to be named after two local WWII heroes

Despite a string of construction delays over the past two years, the former Canton Airport site on Neponset Street is still well on its way to becoming a public park, with a new opening date set for summer 2013, according to officials at the state Department of Conservation and Recreation.

Canton Airport, January 1942 (National Archives, courtesy Marc J. Frattasio Collection)

The multi-million-dollar state project, which was originally targeted for completion in summer 2011, centers on a 9.5-acre area within Fowl Meadow South that is immediately adjacent to Neponset Street and east of Interstate 95. The “remediation area” includes a portion of the airport site as well as six-plus acres of bordering wetlands.

The first phase of the project, which involved the cleanup and off-site disposal of soil contaminated with PCBs, was completed in June 2011. The second and final phase — consisting of soil remediation and the construction of park land improvements — was put on hold for approximately 10 months while the DCR awaited final approval from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; however, all remaining regulatory requirements have been satisfied and work recently restarted in November, reported SJ Port, spokesperson for the DCR.

Port said there is initially a “good deal of earth work” to be done, which primarily involves the excavation and stockpiling of contaminated material into the upland area in the vicinity of the former airplane hangars. This “soil reuse area” will then be capped with three feet of clean soil, on which the park improvements will be constructed.

Port said the improvements will consist of a “small entrance parking lot, contact station, extensive native plantings, wetland restoration, scenic overlooks, a shade pavilion, a loop trail, central lawn area, and interpretive signage.”

The DCR had previously explored the possibility of constructing playing fields on the site; however, the idea was ruled out based on public input.

Besides getting a revised completion date, the new state park has also been given a new name: the 1^st Lt. Arthur E. Farnham, Jr., and SSgt. Thomas M. Connolly, Jr. Memorial Park, in honor of two World War II heroes and friends who met while working as mechanics during the heyday of the Canton Airport in the 1930s.

In August of 2011, Canton resident Paul Seery, a former co-worker of Connolly’s at Emerson and Cuming, and Connolly’s son, Ted, appeared before the Board of Selectmen and pitched the idea of naming the park in honor of the two men, who ended up on the same B24 bomber crew and both took part in the once top-secret Halyard Mission, described by some historians as the greatest rescue mission of World War II.

As detailed in the book The Forgotten 500 by Gregory Freeman and later retold in a Citizen story in 2010, Operation Halyard involved the rescue of more than 500 American airmen, most of whom — including Connolly and Farnham — had been shot down over Serbia while on bombing runs to the German-occupied oil fields in Romania. They spent the next several months hiding out in farmhouses, aided by Serbian farm families and protected by Serbian Chetnik guerillas, before being airlifted to safety in December of 1944.

Connolly, a Boston native, settled in Canton after the war, while Farnham returned to his hometown of Needham.

Seery and Ted Connolly, who now lives in Connecticut, relayed the story of the Halyard mission and some of Connolly and Farnham’s other exploits to selectmen, who then passed on the request to the DCR.

In late October, DCR Commissioner Edward Lambert confirmed the renaming in a letter to selectmen.

“We thank you for calling to our attention the important and fascinating history of these two men and the role they played in a significant air campaign in WWII,” wrote Lambert in the letter. “Their memory and heroic actions will also be memorialized in the historic interpretive signage we are developing for installation at the new park.”

“We look forward to the dedication of the new facility next summer,” Lambert concluded.

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Posted by Jay Turner on Jan 3 2013. Filed under News. Both comments and pings are currently closed.