Hugh Hewitt writes:
The end of NYC’s Olympic bid is a sorry tale, full of low politics and crass maneuvering. The horse’s rear of the debacle has to be Sheldon Silver, who said of his decisive vote to screw his own city by blocking the construction of the stadium needed to compete for the Games:
“Am I supposed to turn my back on Lower Manhattan as it struggles to recover? For what? A stadium?”
Do fools really believe that such self-serving poses persuade anyone? Sheldon Silver may end his days in the Assembly. He may even do some good things. But he will forever be remembered –if at all– as the dunce who cost New York the Olympics. As the crowd files out of his memorial service, after an hour or so of faint praise, even his family will turn to each other and say, “Too bad he dropped the ball on the Games.”
I don’t know the story of the Olympics bid and Mr. Silver’s participation, but I do have to ask whether I am the only person on the planet who thinks the last damned thing NY needs is to host the Olympics?
I am not sold on the short-term or long-term economic impact of the Olympics, I am not sold on the amount of money it costs to hold them and the numberr of other projects that would be put on hold to finance the construction for the Olympics, I don’t think NYC needs any more attention. NYC is already a destination, just for being NYC. Is the Olympics really going to help the city’s cachet?
Don’t get me wrong- I love the Olympics. But am I wrong to think that they are more of a burden than they are a benefit to a city like New York, and is it wrong to think that NYC’s priorities should be elsewhere?
Brandon
No, you’re not wrong, John. And I don’t see why so many people think publically financed sports stadiums are a boon to the local economy.
Andrew J. Lazarus
Had NYC won the Olympics and built the stadium, Hewitt would have been the first to criticize the city for spending its money there while the school budget, the potholes, etc. go to the dogs.
JKC
As a New Yorker (albeit an Upstate New Yorker) I look at this as a triumph for fiscal sanity. If Bloomberg and the Jets want to build a new stadium, let them pay for it.
Christie S.
JKC, I agree with you 100%. I’m in South Florida. When Wayne-boy decided that his former baseball team needed a new stadium, I was all for it…until he said he wanted the citizens to pay for it.
Nope…ML sports teams are corporations and businesses just like any other. Let them build their own structures with loans, just like the rest of us. If the government/taxpayers have to build the stadium, then…the government/taxpayers should be majority stockholder.
Our particular greedy bastard already had the city/county/state floating part of his new ice hockey arena, via bond issues. And then had the nerve to bitch about following Davis-Bacon Act labor laws.
Grrrr….I don’t like Wayne-boy.
JoshA
I think there is a difference between a city like Salt Lake City or Nagano and one like New York or Paris. The former are not widely known outside of their country. The latter are indeed well known—and I don’t think having the Olypics will convince people to go there.
For short term benefits, its even worse. Aside from Los Angeles in 1984, I don’t recall any city turning a profit on the Olympics. Am I wrong here?
iocaste
I live in NYC; everyone I know hated the idea of the stadium and hated the idea of the Olympics.
mazzy
I second that, iocaste. I live in the city too and have talked with dozens of people who agree that lower Manhattan is the priority; the West Side project–because it is more than just a stadium–would shift development from downtown to the west side. That’s not right.
And the Olympics? Please, we don’t need that headache. Good riddance.
Jay C
Well, a sort-of-contrary opinion from another New Yorker: having the Olympics would have been nice, IMO (I have a place in the country – I’d be off watching the Games on TV) – but not necessary for the City’s tourism. However, the now-one-hopes-mercifully-staked-to-death West Side Stadium plan was/is nothing but a wasteful boondoggle, and un-freakin-believably ill-planned (??NO PARKING???) – designed mostly to benefit just ONE company (NY Jets), and line the pockets of the building-trades unions and their Mob pals at taxpayers’ expense. This idiotic plan has been shambling around like some B-movie zombie for 15 years or more, now: whatever his motivation (and God, these words are hard to type!) Sheldon Silver deserves praise and thanks from the people of NYC for finally shooting it in the head.. But not too much: don’t want to swell his head.
SheRa
The stadium plan SUCKED. Not only was it perfectly situated to maximize traffic nightmares, not only would it build a huge, ugly, pedestrian unfriendly monstrosity in one of the world’s most pedestrian-friendly cities, but it served no one but rich people who would have built it and bought all the tickets. Is that what New York’s school children, who don’t even have paper towels and toilet paper in their overcrowded schools, deserve?
Yehudit
This NYCer says ditto to the above comments.
NYC badly needs upgrades to the public transit infrastructure, among many other things.
Anderson
If Hewitt’s pro-stadium, that’s really all I need to know to be glad it’s a bust.
the talking dog
Everyone (of one party, anyway) conveniently forgets that the State’s REPUBLICAN State Senate Manjority Leader Joe Bruno ALSO joined Mr. Silver in scotching this ridiculous boondoggle that the City needed like another terrorist attack (which, no doubt, the Olympics would invite… a fact doubtless not overlooked by the IOC in selecting lower risk favorites Paris and London over high risk New York and Madrid and off the chart risk Moscow.
Mark V.
I think it was Balko who said that, rather than go along with the trend of corporate naming of stadiums, he’d like to see the next publicly-financed stadium named “Taxpayers’ Stadium.”
wrye
TTD, are you blaming Hewitt or the commentators here? The post’s only about Hewitt’s, um, viewpoint, after all…
Geek, Esq.
When Hugh Hewitt offers to pay for the stadium (including necessary infrastructure requirements), I’ll stop considering him a horse’s ass for making such comments. But not a moment before.
Peter ve
Why not have the Olympics in Athens every four years? (other than the opportunity for graft on the part of the lords of Olympus). They just finished building all kinds of sports facilities they’ll never use again (Velodrome, anyone?)
kth
John, you are absolutely right. I had always supposed Hewitt was a limited-government guy, obviously I was mistaken.
I love sports (war Houston Rockets!), but I have never understood why people who don’t care about sports should be expected to pay for my entertainment.