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January 3, 2005
From Gold Medal Idea to Olympic-Sized Mess
Downtown Brooklyn Star/The Queens Ledger:
Rather than craft a modest Olympic bid plan that would live within the city's means, Doctoroff, along with his old friend Mayor "Diamond" Mike Bloomberg, have tied New York's Olympic hopes in with a raft of gigantic, highly controversial projects, including Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards development and the New York Jets West Side stadium. The Bloomberg administration has openly admitted that it hopes to use the Olympics as a "timeline" to ensure speedy construction of the Jets stadium and other projects, which, it contends, will greatly contribute to the city's economic health. Such a view has merit, but it also looks like an attempt to steamroll opposition and critical comment through a sort of passive bullying. Much like the purity of athleticism itself has been sullied by sponsorship deals and ratings-driven spectacle, New York's attempt to attain Olympic glory has been tarnished with the grubby smear of entrepreneurial real estate. New York's honchos have attached hosting the Games, a popular idea that could require some amount of public funding, to planned stadiums for private sports teams and developers, a contentious idea that could require lots more public funding.
Posted by lumi at January 3, 2005 9:40 AM