Reality or fantasy? No one can predict today whether New York City will win out over its big-city competitors: Cincinnati, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Tampa and Washington, D.C.
But one thing is certain: Queens appears unified in its acclaim for the 600-page Olympic bid submitted to the USOC in late May. The boroughs role is decisive since so many of the events will occur in Queens and that means vast improvements in parks, housing, convention space, athletic facilities and mass transit.
Assemblyman Mark Weprins comments are typical of a sampling of opinion obtained by The Queens Courier:
"Stupendous. I cant think of a better city than New York for the olympics. We already have the venues. This is an international city. So many of the international visitors will want to see the games here."
Queens prominence in Olympic plans emerged on Monday when the U.S. Olympic Committee site evaluation team, here for a three-day inspection visit, made the Queens Museum of Art its first visit. They viewed the sprawling panorama model of the City that is the centerpiece of the Museums collection.
The strategy proposed by Dan Doctoroff who heads the NYC2012, calls for a major borough involvement. It would mean creating an Olympic Village in Queens West. The creation of Queens West has been a long-held dream. The proposal calls for quartering athletes in housing there and shuttling them in special trains along the Long Island Rail Road and New Jersey transit lines and on East River ferries.
Doctoroff said that while the Committee is in New York, it will see 36 of 40 proposed olympic venues in just two days
"The overriding theme of our bid is New York as the worlds second home," he said. Today, children from no fewer than 188 of the 199 nations represented in the 2000 Olympic Games attend New York City schools."
City Council Speaker Peter Vallone, a mayoralty candidate, whose western Queens district would benefit greatly if a New York City olympics became a reality, had this to say about that possibility:
"I strongly support the effort to bring the 2012 Olympics to New York City. There is no question that the greatest City in the world should host the worlds greatest sporting event."
One proposal in the olympic plan calls for joining two man-made lakes at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park into a 2,000-meter course, with six new boathouses erected near the former site of the Flushing Aquacade. If New York City gets the bid, improvements will be made to Meadow and Willow lakes at the Park. While the lakes water quality today is poor, dredging will remove the heavy metal sediment that has accumulated for decades. Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the Citys biggest olympic booster, believes a decision favoring New York City will breathe new life in his hopes to build a proposed West Side stadium that also would be used by the New York Jets. He told a news conference Monday that New Yorkers will be rewarded with new housing, parks, convention space, athletic facilities and transit improvements.
Giuliani also reminded the U.S. Olympic Committee, meeting at the Queens Museum of Art, that under his administration crime in the City has dropped precipitously.
According to Doctoroff the olympic bid process has two phases. First, New York must compete against seven cities to become the U.S. candidate city to host the 2012 Games. That decision will be made by the U.S. Olympic Committee in 2002. Then U.S. candidate will compete against a worldwide field to host the games.
To stage the olympic games, Doctoroff said, the host city must provide world class competition facilities for 28 olympic sports from badminton to beach volleyball, tennis to taekwondo. The Olympic Village, which is slated for Queens West, would house 16,000 athletes, coaches, and officials from some 200 nations.
New York would be called upon to provide a system to transport olympic participants safely and efficiently, with minimal disruption to the Citys daily life.
