No Olympics for you!

July 6, 2005

London, Paris and Madrid all landed ahead of NYC in the race for the 2012 Olympics, with London being the eventual winner. Bloomberg and Doctoroff shouldn't be totally disheartened. After all, their bid did beat out Moscow's. And even though they didn't get their stadium, they still get to build a stadium for an -ets team, albeit in Queens. And even though the Mets are paying for the new stadium, taxpayers are still footing a not insubstantial part of the costs.

On WNYC's live coverage, Brian Lehrer noted that the number of supporters celebrating in Trafalgar Square dwarfed the number gathered at Rockefeller Center. While I don't doubt that London's bid enjoyed much more popular support than New York's (since no one seems to share the Deputy Mayor's enthusiasm), in defense of NYC 2012, the decision was announced at 7:30 AM EDT. NYC was eliminated about an hour earlier. Not many people are out and about in midtown at 6:30 AM. In London, the decision was announced at 12:30 PM GMT -- in other words, around lunchtime, when many people are going to be around Trafalgar Square.

Of course, that doesn't change the fact that there really was little public support for bringing the Olympics to NYC. It was never something that was ever embraced wholeheartedly by the public.

Will the NYC 2012 organizers try again for 2016? Probably. Should they?