Phew!
It's too good to be true! The 2012 Olympic Games will not be played in Gotham!
I won't bore you with the details of what a nightmare, in logistics and expense, our hosting the Olympic Games would have been. Let's just say that New York City has already got enough going on. We don't need special events in Manhattan. People who live here go away when they want something "different." Or they walk through Times Square for a taste of the incessant spectacle that domestic tourists are kind enough to perform.
(It's true: European tourists look just like New Yorkers - they just don't speak English. American tourists do not look like New Yorkers. They shoot video footage of buildings and form clots in the middle of busy sidewalks.)
But what am I saying? The West Side stadium kibosh, which pushed Mayor Bloomberg into an almost indecently hasty embrace of the Shea Stadium remake, meant that Manhattan would have been spared the Olympic hustle anyway, at least during the day.
My heartiest congratulations to London. What a golden opportunity to recycle the Millennium Dome!
