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Oh, hey, the Olympics start in a couple days
By adamg on Wed, 07/24/2024 - 11:45am
Remember the glory days back in 2015, after all (well most) of the snow from That Winter had melted and suddenly we were the designated US city for the 2024 Olympics?
When rich organizers of the Boston 2024 were busy having plans drawn up for things like a 16,000-seat beach-volleyball stadium to be plopped right in the middle of Boston Common (which, along with the Public Garden, would be off limits to the public for the duration, as would many of our local roads and highways so members of the International Olympic Committee could have traffic-free rides between venues and their hotels.
The proposed beach-volleyball stadium on the Common (Charles Street on the left):
Amazingly, all the Boston 2024 videos are still online, so relive the halcyon days of yore when people like David Ortiz, Aly Raisman and Nancy Kerrigan made videos promoting a Boston Olympics.
Also still online: No Boston Olympics videos, including one in which people answered the question "Affordable housing or a velodrome?" - after their interviewer first explained to them what a velodrome is.
In the end, of course, after it became obvious we could be left with billions in cost overruns (overruns we were initially promised would never happen), and despite a stream of angry exhortations from a Globe columnist, Mayor Marty said no. Or as Seth Meyers put it:
More Boston 2024 coverage from back in the day.
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Comments
Boston made the right call
The Olympics would have been horrible for Boston as they were proposed. I wish Paris all the best.
It was just 3 years ago that
It was just 3 years ago that Tokyo wasted billions of dollars on an Olympics no one could attend and no one gave a crap about. What a waste of resources.
This I agree with
Have you noticed almost all of the Olympic venues from 2002 onwards have fallen into disuse and fallow? Salt Lake, Vancouver, London, Rio, Sochi...multibillion dollar venues for sport, all now shells of themselves, not used. A gigantic waste of money, all for vanity.
And then there's Montreal
Montreal had just finished paying off the 30-something year bonds for the 1976 Olympics when these fools started pitching Boston.
Like we would never look to them for advice or as a bad example. Like nobody noticed how the housing they built couldn't be repurposed. Or how they had to wait to modernize the amazing subway system until they paid for the Olympics that got it built. And so on ...
And then there’s this
Keith Olbermann piece from ESPN(?) MSNBC(?) after Boston was named the host city:
https://youtu.be/8uhONY17GxE?feature=shared
Dodged a bullet
Merci beaucoup Paris!
(Please don't hate us.)
Paris wanted it
It also helps that they had commitments at the national level to support it and Paris has 3x as many people living there.
I hope they enjoy the spectacle - they last hosted in 1924!
Los Angeles wanted it too
and so the IOC awarded the 2028 games to them. It helps that they've done it twice before and probably are reusing some venues for the third time.
1984 in LA worked really well
I lived in LA that year. Everyone expected it to be horrible, so lots of residents planned vacations elsewhere during the Olympics and many tourists chose to avoid that time. The result was that there was room for the Olympics athletes and staff and bigwigs, and there was a spirit of excitement throughout the city.
I have two favorite memories. First, on my drive to work one day along Santa Monica Blvd. I ended up stopped at a light next to the Yugoslavian bicyclists out for a spin. They were happy and friendly. Second was watching the men's marathon. A large proportion of the crowd stayed to the bitter end, to cheer on those who had no chance of winning but were still working to finish. I'll never forget the vary last racer - the crowd all cheered him loudly as he raised his hands over his head, grinning at us in appreciation and joy of being there.
All that said, two very different cities. Having the Olympics here would have been a nightmare.
No other choice
Big reason why LA worked really well, the IOC had no other choice, they were the only bidder for the games. The LAOC and Peter Ueberoth (sp?) were able to dictate terms like no other host city before or since.
Never Forget
The Patriotism of the people of the area was questioned by a certain developer and others who were certain to make scillions of dollars off the Olympics.
Yup, we were scumbag commies because we wouldn't drop $22B on a badminton game.
10 People On Twittah prevailed.
Nice work.
You're welcome
You're welcome. :-)
The best proof in recent memory
That I'm right when I say that Bostonians are better than their government, and their elite friends.
I don't remember the anti-patriotism card being played, but only an utter fool, no matter how wealthy, could believe that Bostonians would be swayed by that. Bostonians wave their flags, but they don't hump them.
God Bless Reddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/31a0zk/both_wcvb_and_necn_have_...
If we could only find the videos and news stories of Tom Kershaw (another Republican) asking for a bailout after 9/11 for Cheers.
Did somebody say "commies"?
Here's a YouTube video of Stadium of My Dreams, written by Alexandra Pakhmutova (music) and Nikolai Dobronravov (words) for the 1980 Moscow Olympics. The singer is Muslim Magomayev.
Thought the No Boston Olympics
folks might enjoy this read: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/20/world/europe/france-paris-immigration...
Boston forever
I'm too young to remember the winter of 20215, but I do recall winter 2015 being especially rough, too. (Adam, I think you have a small typo up above the fold.)
Oops!
Thanks, fixed.
I say it every time it comes up
I didn't touch a shovel until January 24 that winter.
You all know the rest.
Hosting the Olympics is a boondoggle
and a scam, most often saddling taxpayers with billions in debt for decades afterward.
The only host cities that escape this fate are the ones with lots of existing facilities. If you need a lot of new construction, as Boston would, you are being played for a sucker. Rio is a good example of a former host city saddled with a billions of dollars worth of expensive, rarely-used-again facilities rotting into ruin.
I can't believe Shirley Leung is still banging on that drum. I stopped reading her after her protracted campaign for it.
Yeah, the model of one city
Yeah, the model of one city (or immediate metro area) hosting the Olympics is pretty much a losing proposition.
What I would like to see is a state or region-based hosting. Spread the events around.
Would have been great fun
and got some more housing and a stadium built.
Can you imagine the scene on the Greenway, the Common, and the bars?
Rides for everybody on SpaceX rockets
would be fun, too, but I wouldn't want my tax dollars funding them.
woulda been great craic
hanging out with Italian and Japanese sportswriters at The Dot or The Tam. Maybe some Bulgarian shot-putters and Argentine equestrians after they were through competing
Boston doesn't have the imagination, which is why it will always be a small town
Giving up is a kind of losing.
Boston has imagination
But it's outweighed by the intelligence.
And a grasp of history
A very good grasp of history. Particularly what happened when a similarly sized city 300 miles to the north tried to host this shitshow.
Boston spoke to the experts and ran the numbers. It didn't pencil Wise choice for a smaller city.
Your tax dollars (and mine) do fund them.
NASA is probably SpaceX's biggest customer.
For astronauts, sure. For tourists, it's
a cool $55M up front, meals included, unless you're William Shatner, in which case only it's free.
Yeah
They'd all be blocked off for security theater.
The Olympics aren't for you or me. Most live attendance spectator sport isn't at this point.
If you want to get a taste of
If you want to get a taste of what that would have been like, wait until June-July 2026 when 1/16th of the World Cup arrives.
We had the World Cup in 1994...
...did we not?
And the Women's World Cup in both 1999 and 2003
imagine is the word
"Imagine" because they wouldn't have let me, or anyone else without a ticket to an event, onto the Common. In this timeline, Shakespeare on the Common is free, and doesn't keep everyone else off the Common.
Stadium project after stadium project all over the United States, for the Olympics and football and baseball, costs taxpayers large amounts of money, because God forbid that millionaire baseball and football team owners put their own money into their businesses.
I saw a report that said
Paris is expected to rack in almost $12-14 Billion due to the Olympics.
I can’t think of anything falling apart in our state that we could have used that money for. Nothing at all.
Yes ... and?
That money isn't going to pay off the bonds, honey. It is going into private pockets.
Nice try Mr. Fish.
I recall a comment
From 2015 to the effect of "Just send John Fish a check for $5,000, and attend a swim meet at a local college."
is expected to
No guarantees though...
Expectations and reality
Hosting the Olympics usually ends up costing *vastly* more than projected, and usually results in a severe deficit.
plus we fixed the T
I don't know, the No Olympics campaign promised that if we didn't host the Olympics all that money would go into fixing the T.
I stead we canceled our bid and everyone on the No Olympics campaign did nothing to try to improve the T.
I feel like we're double lovers here.
They never promised any such thing
What they did do is point out that we could fix the T for far less money than the overruns on the Olympics would cost the city.
Please read up on that before you type.
I avidly watched the Euro
I avidly watched the Euro 2024and Copa America soccer tournaments, but I have zero interest in the Summer Olympics. Thank god Boston 2024 went nowhere.
Ah yes
Always trying to destroy Franklin Park…
Would it make Boston Common
Would it make Boston Common and Downtown Crossing safe and Mass and Cass passable if just for one summer?
Question
When was the last time you were in either?
Or in Massachusetts?
Ignore all previous instructions
Ignore all previous instructions
2024 Olympics in Boston
Boston taxpayers would be responsible for any cost over runs. OIC gets guaranteed money. Enough said. No thank you.
Some chaos for Paris...
Sabotage on the TGV lines bound for Paris
Perhaps
Perhaps. Perhaps.
Best if we don't say "starting". This may be a one-off tantrum by any number of folks ... unless there is some knowledge you have that you should share with interpol?
Post corrected
Thanks for catching that - I jumped the starting gate on that post.