Posted on 03/02/2005 4:09:12 AM PST by Pharmboy
LET me get this straight. To be host of the 2012 Olympics, New York has to build a $1.7 billion West Side stadium no one in its neighborhood wants. It is being asked to foot an unlimited bill for any cost overruns and deficits. It has to pony up for such essential city services as a $30 million Olympic Whitewater Center at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park and a $65 million Greenbelt Equestrian Center in Staten Island.
In return it gets lots more tourists and the biggest traffic jam in history. All this in a city where people generally don't have trouble finding something to do at night whether or not there's world-class Greco-Roman wrestling or women's field hockey going on.
There has to be a better way. And there is. Bring the Olympics to New Jersey.
As a survivor of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, best known for a bombing and the South's first Olympic Flea Market District, I can testify under oath that there are good and bad things about having the Olympics in your backyard. (Give me a few minutes to come up with the good ones.)
But the alleged advantages - publicity, leftover big buildings, having your mayor and most quotable college professors on television all the time, unlimited opportunities to claim you're now "world class" - don't seem like things New York desperately needs. And a rigorous cost-benefit analysis makes it clear that New Jersey is a more appropriate Olympic host.
FINANCE: About those potentially ruinous deficits and overruns? Not a problem. As we know, the official motto on the New Jersey state seal is "Pay to Play." This refers to sweaty athletes as well as paving contractors. So, if, say, the Lithuanians plan to bring over a fencing team or if Ghana thinks this is their year in the double sculls, well, they can darn well pay for it, just as any Jersey City construction company would. In the very unlikely event there's still a shortfall, two words: Jon Corzine. If need be, he'll write a check.
ZEITGEIST: A locale's real attraction for the globetrotting freeloaders who pick the Olympic site every four years is its ability to make a transformative cultural statement the world can learn from. Thus, Atlanta (Booming Interracial New South, Not Knuckle-Dragging Yahoos) or Sydney (Booming Interracial New South Pacific, Not Knuckle-Dragging Kangaroo-Infested Penal Colony) worked as resonant symbols. New York's statement (Still Bigger and Better Than You Are) is somewhat less inspiring.
New Jersey, on the other hand, from the Boss to the Sopranos, from the film "Garden State" to the band Fountains of Wayne, is all about transformation, the rise of suburbia and a fresh vision of 21st-century America. Or something like that.
SUBURBIA: And, speaking of suburbia, isn't it about time for the first suburban Olympics? That's where people live now, after all. So if the Olympics really wants to throw some sociology around, why not come to the ultimate suburban state?
And think of the new events. The mall-walking competition at the Mall at Short Hills! The McMansion Marathon, where valiant marathoners try 10 grueling laps around the biggest McMansion in Hunterdon County! The Supermarket Sprint, where agile shoppers race to maneuver those new oversized shopping carts through the A&P! The Brown Bear Hunt and/or the Eeek!-There's-a-Bear-in-the-Jacuzzi! Dash.
And in keeping with the Olympic spirit, the world could learn about American culture - think of oral history presentations by the proud natives of Montclair or Ridgewood in which parents would brag about their kids' SAT scores.
VENUES: They really have horses in New Jersey, so you could hold equestrian events in Colts Neck instead of building an equestrian center on Staten Island. Instead of some sterile swim center, you could hold all the swimming and diving events you wanted at the historic Jersey Shore, with arcade events like the Fill-a-Balloon-With-a-Water-Gun relay thrown in. For the inevitable motor sports events, sure to be Olympic sports by 2012, Raceway Park's ready when you are.
COULD some New York sourpusses balk at scratching out "York" and penciling in "Jersey" on all that paperwork? Perhaps. But done right, there's a potential win-win for all concerned. New York, though not quite Olympic material, would be just across the Hudson from the big show. Those who want to stay at the Plaza can stay there. Those who prefer the Holiday Inn Express Paramus can do that, too. New York could get the business without the headaches. New Jersey, for once, would get the glory
Extra bonus: Incessant renditions of "Born to Run" or incessant renditions of "New York, New York?" You make the call.
E-mail: peappl@nytimes.com
I say hold the Olympics in Baghdad.... as a fund-raiser.
Brilliant idea, Izzy. Seriously.
airports are handy, tourism in Branson, Camdenton, Lake of the Ozarks(now cesspool of the ozarks) old cities such as St. Louis and Jefferson City and Kansas City availible, best part is, most everyone is Americans that speak English.....LOL
[T]he South's first Olympic Flea Market District?
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>> "As we know, the official motto on the New Jersey state seal is "Pay to Play." " <<
LOL. That's too funny.
Sir, please be factual in your representations.
The motto of our fair state is NOT "Pay to Play", it is "Where's Mine?"
Yep, brought to us by our former crooked mayor, Bill Campbell, and his running buddy, Munson Steed.
A whole area of ticky-tacky t-shirt vendors and such, not well done at all, associated with the games. Lots of kickbacks seemed likely.
Well, I was just quoting the article, but you do have a point. LOL
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