#Newark airport runway construction series#

When sited in the late 1920s, the airport was built on damp marshlands in the outskirts of Newark. Most New Jerseyans don’t recognize the area for what it once was: some of the southernmost portion of the Meadowlands. Today’s Newark Liberty International Airport stands in heavily developed industrial sections of Newark and Elizabeth, bordered by the New Jersey Turnpike and Route 1, but it wasn’t always that way. Locating an airport in a congested area wasn’t the planners’ original intent. (Judy Blume's 2015 novel In the Unlikely Event is set on the backdrop of the tragedies.) A total of 119 people, including several Elizabeth residents in their homes, were killed in unexpected crashes near the airport. Three fatal accidents over the course of 10 weeks in the early 1950s forced the public and government officials to consider whether large airports and heavily populated areas were good neighbors or a recipe for disaster.

#Newark airport runway construction series#

I also came upon a seemingly forgotten aspect of the history of EWR, an unfortunate series of events that virtually cried out for a new airfield in the region. When I researched the issue, I discovered a fair amount of discussion about the need for longer runways to accommodate massive jets – seemingly more that Newark might be able to accommodate. Thing is, for as much as people will marvel over the folly of replacing this pristine wilderness with an airport, nobody talks about WHY exactly we needed one there… and why Newark International Airport wasn’t deemed sufficient for the flying public. As you might remember from our earlier story, the Refuge is the hard won project of environmentalists who stopped the marshland from becoming a massive regional jetport. A recent visit to the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in Morris and Somerset Counties led me to think again about how close we came to losing this marvelous natural resource to development.