Comment on Somewhere.com's Boston Radio Watch

["Laurence Glavin" <lglavin@lycos.com>]

There was a story in last week's Boston Radio Watch (available thru www.somewhere.com)
about neighborhood opposition to the placement of new AM towers in the Oak
Park section of Newton.  About two weeks or so ago, the Globe's Real
Estate section ran a story about "Mansionization' in the suburbs, i.e. tearing
down a modest home in a place like Lexington or Concord, and replacing it
waith a 4-bedroom, 4-bath, 3-garage multi-story house out of all proportion
to its neighbors.  One paragraph mentioned Oak Hill Park in Newton as one 
neighborhood where this is happening. (Cue the lightbulb going off over my head)...
hey, that's where WUNR-AM 1600 has two newly-rebuilt towers, and two
other AM's in the market want to relocate their transmitters.
So, since I had today (05/17) off, I visited the Oak Hill area,
and the Globe seemed to have overreached by calling what's happening
there as mansionization.  I spotted 8 or 9 homes that appear to have been 
built in recent years, and none of the variety I see every day in 
nearby (to me) Andover.  I got the picture of folks in new $500,000+
homes deciding they didn't want to look out at a half-dozen 
blinking towers that make them feel as if they were living near an airport
("This is Al Sleet, your hippy-dippy weatherman; at the airport it's
70 degrees, but then I don't know anybody who lives at the airport")
but the neighborhood appears largely unchanged.  I don't recall they got 
very exercised when WUNR rebuilt their towers (or earlier when the original
WBOS-FM was placed there.)  In addition, what were shrubs a few years ago
are now fully-grown trees that hide towers in the vicinity of 750 Sawmill;
if they were set back in the wooded area, they wouldn't be all that 
visible in the immediate area.  (The interference by a 50KW WKOX
is another issue.)  Something tells me that BIG RADIO may still get
it's way, I'm talking about Clear Channel here, and those towers WILL get built.

Laurence glavin
Methuen, MA



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