Boston Park Murder Spurs Emergency Towers

Mar 1, 2006 12:00 PM

Last spring, a popular community activist who had lobbied for more security at Boston's Ronan Park was murdered there after confronting two muggers. News of the incident shook the community and pushed the issue of improving park safety in Boston to the forefront of Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino's agenda.

Menino ordered the installation of the first of five city-owned Emergency Phone towers from Talk-a-Phone Co., Chicago, in the park. Today, the five towers are a part of the city's two-year vision to install more than 100 of the vandal-resistant units in public parks.

The Talk-A-Phone towers are designed to quickly connect distressed users, with the touch of a button, to municipal police while automatically transmitting their location to the dispatcher. At the same time, a constantly lit blue light/strobe mounted on top of the 9.5-ft. tall Emergency Tower immediately starts flashing, alerting anyone in the surrounding area of trouble.

A common obstacle to Emergency Phone installations in green spaces is the difficulty of connecting the phones to operate through traditional phone line communication. Like most park areas, Ronan Park is not riddled with phones lines, so a cellular interface was installed into the heart of the tower, making the Ronan Park Emergency Towers completely wireless devices.

Since the installation of the first Emergency Phone Tower in Ronan Park, four more towers have been installed in the South Boston area in Rossfield Park of the Hyde Park community, Harambee/Franklin Field of Dorchester and in Ringer Park of Brighton.

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© 2012 Penton Media Inc.

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