Do you hear the clock ticking, Bloomberg?

[holzman_tweed]

Condolences to London, which has won the Olympics in 2012 bid.

Many of us in New York are now breathing a sigh of relief.

If we had gotten this thing, Bloomberg was going to fuck the city up royally to accommodate it. A stadium would have been built on Manhatten's west side, where already-clogged traffic would have to have been squeezed around it. Much of my neighborhood would have been torn down so that an "Olympic village" could have been built (and with the recent S.C. ruling on public domain, wouldn't that have watching the money been fascinatnig?) Flushing Meadow Park would have been torn down to put up another stadium.

Also significantly, Bloomberg put alot of his clout behind the bid. I take it as a hopeful sign that he pushed and shoved, and the city gave him a big "'ey, fuck you!" on the West Side stadium. Maybe we'll dump his ass, after all.

Comments

[ohclandestine.livejournal.com]

I wonder what the general consensus of New Yorkers was on this. Having been in Atlanta during the '96 Olympics, I can honestly say that if Atlanta were up for the bid again I would keep my fingers crossed that it went somewhere else.

I took advantage of free concerts, and saw the team gymnastic competition (the famous Kerri Strug vault), and saw Ray Charles sing. The good things made up for some of the bad things, like traffic. But the real bad things cannot be made up for, like tearing down low income housing (and not replacing it somewhere else) for the Olympic Village (later converted to new dorm rooms for Georgia State U. students.)

I'm glad you don't see this as a real loss.

[unclevlad.livejournal.com]

I was following the bidding via the BBC, and it was amazing the number of self-idenitified New Yorkers were pushing for 'anywhere by NYC', mostly for the reasons you outline, but also because they were terrified at trying to carry the financial burden.

Of course, the fact that Paris is now 0 for 3 in Olympic bids in the last 20 years is just a personal happy-making statistic.

[wednesday]

...shit. Now I have to get the hell out of here.

[bethynyc.livejournal.com]

I was part of that huge exhalation.

Yeah, I hope we dump Bloomberg. Because honestly, the olympics would have screwed up the city more than RNC did, and we would get even less out of it!

*sigh* We don't need a stadium, we need working subways and more low/moderate income housing and better schools!

[holzman.livejournal.com]

I guess all that talk about promising to be personally accountable for improving the schools is going to come back to haunt him...

[holzman.livejournal.com]

I think the consensus is that it was a bad idea. I haven't been able to find anyone in favor of it.

[ohclandestine.livejournal.com]

Atlanta longed for international notoriety back in the early nineties. It was tired of screaming about it's busiest airport and Coca-Cola. It got what it wanted and those of us who aren't transplants (which at this point is few and far-between) suffered for it.

New York, of all places, doesn't need that.

[surrenderedsoul.livejournal.com]

Master actually said this morning before they announced that London got it, that if NYC got it, he was taking his entire vacation during the olympics because commuting into the city every day is an hour and 45 min. with no traffic. He wasn't attempting it if they stuffed that many people into an already over crowded area.