develop it in any way. Stewart Airfield In 1934 Douglas MacArthur, then superintendent of the United States Military Academy, proposed flight training cadets at the airport. The city sold the land to the military academy for one dollar. A small dirt airstrip was cleared and graded. One of the gates at USMA has been known as Stoney Lonesome Gate ever since. During World War II many barracks and other buildings, which still stand, were built on the base. In January 2008, the Town of New Windsor received a $2.5 million grant from the state to demolish 30–40 buildings as part of the redevelopment of the former base. First Columbia, the developer, said that 20–30 could be retained and reused. Stewart Air Force Base/Stewart Air National Guard Base After the creation of the United States Air Force following World War II, the army airfield was converted to an air force base while still being used for training of cadets at West Point. Stewart became the home of Headquarters 1st Region Army Air Defense Command in 1966. It remained so until the deactivation of the Nike Hercules system at the end of 1974. The air force base was deactivated in 1970 and it officially remained unoccupied by the Air Force until 1983, when the 105th Airlift Wing (105 AW) and the 213th Engineer Installation Squadron (213 EIS) of the New York Air National Guard took up quarters. The Air National Guard unit has flown support missions not only for U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan but also for humanitarian relief efforts. This area of the airport, now called Stewart Air National Guard Base, was home to the Air Force C-5 Galaxy aircraft before being replaced by the newer and smaller C-17 Globemaster III in 2011. Stewart ANGB also hosts VMGR-452, a Marine Corps Reserve squadron flying the KC-130J. Stewart International Airport MTA Expansion plan In the early 1970s, Governor Nelson Rockefeller's administration saw the potential for Stewart to support the metropolitan area. Its long runway made it particularly attractive for intercontinental service via supersonic transport (SST), then under development in the U.S. and elsewhere. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority was the first government body to try to convert it into the New York metropolitan area's fourth major airport. It tripled the airport's territory, extending its land well beyond its previous western boundary at Drury Lane, a two-lane rural road. The state government