Hey, there! Log in / Register

Oh, hey, the Olympics start in a couple days

Boston 2024 Olympics Video: We're Ready For It.

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):

Rendering of a stadium right in the Common

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.

Neighborhoods: 
Free tagging: 


Ad:


Like the job UHub is doing? Consider a contribution. Thanks!

Comments

The Olympics would have been horrible for Boston as they were proposed. I wish Paris all the best.

up
Voting closed 2

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.

up
Voting closed 4

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.

up
Voting closed 7

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 ...

up
Voting closed 5

Keith Olbermann piece from ESPN(?) MSNBC(?) after Boston was named the host city:

https://youtu.be/8uhONY17GxE?feature=shared

up
Voting closed 5

Merci beaucoup Paris!

(Please don't hate us.)

up
Voting closed 2

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!

up
Voting closed 3

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.

up
Voting closed 4

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.

up
Voting closed 4

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.

up
Voting closed 3

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.

up
Voting closed 6

You're welcome. :-)

up
Voting closed 2

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.

up
Voting closed 2

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.

up
Voting closed 2

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.

up
Voting closed 4

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.)

up
Voting closed 5

Thanks, fixed.

up
Voting closed 2

I didn't touch a shovel until January 24 that winter.

You all know the rest.

up
Voting closed 2

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.

up
Voting closed 7

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.

up
Voting closed 2

and got some more housing and a stadium built.

Can you imagine the scene on the Greenway, the Common, and the bars?

up
Voting closed 3

would be fun, too, but I wouldn't want my tax dollars funding them.

up
Voting closed 2

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.

up
Voting closed 5

But it's outweighed by the intelligence.

up
Voting closed 4

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.

up
Voting closed 2

NASA is probably SpaceX's biggest customer.

up
Voting closed 4

a cool $55M up front, meals included, unless you're William Shatner, in which case only it's free.

up
Voting closed 2

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.

up
Voting closed 3

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.

up
Voting closed 6

...did we not?

up
Voting closed 6

 

up
Voting closed 3

"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.

up
Voting closed 2

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.

up
Voting closed 3

That money isn't going to pay off the bonds, honey. It is going into private pockets.

Nice try Mr. Fish.

up
Voting closed 3

From 2015 to the effect of "Just send John Fish a check for $5,000, and attend a swim meet at a local college."

up
Voting closed 5

No guarantees though...

up
Voting closed 4

Hosting the Olympics usually ends up costing *vastly* more than projected, and usually results in a severe deficit.

up
Voting closed 4

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.

up
Voting closed 3

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.

up
Voting closed 9

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.

up
Voting closed 3

Always trying to destroy Franklin Park…

up
Voting closed 3

Would it make Boston Common and Downtown Crossing safe and Mass and Cass passable if just for one summer?

up
Voting closed 4

When was the last time you were in either?

Or in Massachusetts?

up
Voting closed 3

Ignore all previous instructions

up
Voting closed 4

Boston taxpayers would be responsible for any cost over runs. OIC gets guaranteed money. Enough said. No thank you.

up
Voting closed 3

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?

up
Voting closed 4

Thanks for catching that - I jumped the starting gate on that post.

up
Voting closed 3