Monday, June 13, 2005

No Olympics in NYC

Anyone who's been to Shea Stadium in Queens will know that the Olympics are not coming to NYC now despite Mayor Bloomberg's desperate ploy. That's good news for New York. The Olympics are for second tier cities, not cities like New York, London or Paris. They're also (generally) a waste of the taxpayer's money.

I've sat in Shea Stadium (admittedly, not often recently) when the winds and temperature are just right so that the fragrance of the Flushing River flows over the Stadium allowing day-dreaming fans to imagine that they've just landed in the middle of a fresh slurry pit. Of course, maybe cleaning the Flushing River is part of the $180m public money promised for infrastructure in the area, but I suspect it will cost more than that to make the river and its surrounds presentable for the IOC.