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Threat to historic area spotlighted on the History Channel

This Saturday, July 12th, at 8:00 p.m., the History Channel will air a one-hour special on America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places, prominently featuring Minute Man National Historical Park and the threat of Hanscom expansion. Host Roger Mudd interviewed park superintendent Nancy Nelson, Save Our Heritage executive director Anna Winter, and Massport CEO Craig Coy for the program. The segment will also include interviews with Save Our Heritage advisory board members David McCullough, Don Henley and Douglas Brinkley. The program note from the History Channel's web site is below.

============================= Save Our History Saturday, July 12 @ 8pm ET/PT

TV Guide excerpt: America's Most Endangered 2003

Join us for our Emmy Award-winning series dedicated to saving our nation's heritage. As we profile the colorful stories of the National Trust for Historic Preservation's 11 Most Endangered Sites of 2003 -- historic locales that face extinction -- we review local and national efforts to protect them. The sites, many of which are plagued by controversy, epitomize the American experience, spanning many cultures, regions, and eras. Featured are interviews with people both for and against saving the sites. -- TV-Guide

Boston Globe -- NorthWest section July 10, 2003

Hanscom controversy History Channel topic

By Davis Bushnell, Globe Correspondent

The battle between the Massachusetts Port Authority and activist group leaders over the impact of Bedford's Hanscom Field on the surrounding area will be aired at length nationally this Saturday (July 12) at 8 p.m. on The History Channel.

The show is produced in partnership with the Washington-based National Trust for Historic Preservation. On May 29, the nonprofit group, citing increased corporate jet operations at the airfield, put Minute Man National Historical Park and surrounding areas on its list of "America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places."

The one-hour program will be hosted by former NBC and CBS anchor Roger Mudd.

The skirmish between Massport and opponents in Bedford, Concord, Lexington, and Lincoln gets top billing on the program, a chapter in The History Channel's "Save Our History" series. "This is a bigger controversy" than some of the other endangered sites, "so we're giving it more time," said Pam Ridder, the program's producer.

For this lead-off segment, Mudd interviewed Nancy Nelson, superintendent of the Minute Man park; Anna Winter, executive director of Save Our Heritage, a Concord-based historic preservation group; and Massport chief executive Craig P. Coy.

"We believe we presented both sides of the story," Ridder said.

Nelson and Winter asserted that commercial and corporate jet aviation operations threaten the national park and historic landmarks in the four towns, Ridder recalled.

Coy, she said, "did not rule out expansion" at Hanscom. He also said, she added, that the area's density can be attributed to "housing and office developments."

The most recognizable of the other endangered historic places citedby the National Trust are the Eero Saarinen-designed TWA terminal at JFK International Airport in New York City; the Amelia Earhart Memorial Bridge in Atchison, Kan.; and the Hot Springs (Ark.) National Park's Bathhouse Row buildings.

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