New York Throws Away Its Olympic Bid

New Yorkers have a lot of pride.

We like to think that our city is the best in the world, bar none.

We like to think that everyone wants to come here, and all the big events should be here.

We like to think that New York is the center of civilization; it is somewhat like the heir apparent to ancient Rome.

New York got a wake up call today when the Inernational Olympic Committee awarded the Olypics to London. With the choice of London, one cannot logically come to the conclusion that New York was passed over due to the Iraq War. It was due to other reasons.

The fact is that New York City doesn't have what it takes, the facilities, to do truly big events anymore. We can't have the Olympics here, we can't have a Super Bowl here, we don't have a first-class convention center in Manhattan, and we don't have the political leadership to change that.

Rudy Giuliani is remembered as the man who saved New York from a lot of troubles, most notably crime and violence that plauged the city before his tenure. Yet he also the man who cleaned up 42nd Street, turning it from a haven of drugs, homelessness, and lawlessness into Disneyland North. The one block near Eigth Avenue used to be a place you wanted to avoid, yet now it's a place that we show off to our tourists.

You see, sometimes, government officials can revitalize the city.

Boy, do we need Rudy Giulianis at the state level. Senator Joe Bruno and Assemblymen Sheldon Silver, as well as the entrenched New York City Democratic Party establishment, have succeeded in their mission: keeping the Olympics from New York. They, for whatever political reasons, wanted to block the West Side Stadium from being built, and blocking New York's Olympic bid was just the way to do that.

The fact is that the things that made New York City great needed money and political will to happen. When you stop building for the future, all you have left is the past.

What kind of future does New York have if we stop improving our city?


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