Although New Yorkers want the Olympic Games to come to their city in 2012, there’s opposition to the $1.4 billion Javits Convention Center expansion that will be a venue for the Games and the New York Jets.
According to the Houston Chronicle, Dan Doctoroff, New York’s deputy mayor and chief architect of New York’s bid, said at a Pan American Sports Organization’s congress last week, “I’m not sure if people completely yet understand that the Olympic stadium will be on the West Side. That is the only option that we have. An interesting thing that we’re seeing is that people understand it, their opinion of the stadium becomes more favourable. There is no doubt that there is much more discussion about the Olympic Games now, in part because of the progress of the stadium”.
But according to a recent poll 60 per cent of Manhattan voters opposed the stadium plan, said the newspaper. It was the only part of the plan that didn’t win clear cut approval.
It seems that New York’s bid would get more support if the stadium was built in Queens near Shea Stadium and the site of the 1964 World’s Fair, said the newspaper.
Brian Hatch, a New Yorker and former deputy mayor of Salt Lake City told the newspaper, “it’s astonishing how people are willing to help when the Olympics are involved. It creates so much good will for your city. I would love for the Games to come to New York.
“But I want them to go to Queens as part of a bid that has a chance of winning. I feel that we’re on a course now to be bypassed. In fact, I see New York doing so poorly that the U.S. Olympic Committee won’t give it a chance for 2016”.
Hatch says that the NYC2012 bid group complied two years ago with U.S. Olympic Committee requests for a backup venue plan by designating Queens as an alternate to the Manhattan stadium site.
Hatch runs a Web site, www.newyorkgames.org, that tracks New York’s 2012 bid.
Doctoroff still thinks that once the public understands the benefits of the stadium project it will support the plan.
He has estimated that the city and state will generate $67 billion in revenue in return for a $5 billion public investment on the West Side.
On May 18 the International Olympic Committee may eliminate some of the nine cities bidding for the 2012 Games. New York is expected to survive any cuts that may be made and is planning a major advertising and public relations campaign in late May. A draft environmental statement on the expansion is due in June and the final statement is expected in November.
“At that point we will be in position to begin construction. Our goal is to have construction started by the time the IOC votes (in July 2005) and that’s what we’re on track to do”.
Doctoroff says he will stress that New York’s time to become an Olympic city has come and might not come again.
He said, “we have a mayor who is deeply committed to this. We have a rising economic tide that who knows what it will be like in the future. We have the availability of land that may not be available in the future. I just don’t know how long this combination of conditions, which are really unique, are going to be sustainable.
“This is the right moment, and at the end of the day we have to convince 125 members of the International Olympic Committee this is the right place for them and the right time for New York”.
