nyc 2012 Last week, on my way down to a methadone clinic as part of my adolescent medicine rotation, I was walking along midtown on the East Side, late for work. Really, I should have been on time, dropped off steps from the clinic by one of the hospital shuttles, but the traffic that day was so horrible that I just jumped ship, as soon as I realized that I could get out and crawl faster than the van was moving through the streets. Turns out pedestrian traffic was only slightly better, as President Bush, Kofi Annan, and assorted world leaders had all descended upon the city, and I was right near the U.N. Security was swarming everywhere. A handful of people staged a somewhat lackadaisical protest, Make History Not War, that sort of thing, as they were guarded by far too many NYPD officers for the number of protesters and the energy of their efforts. As I waited for a light to turn green, a tight knot of television cameras, all pointed towards the inside of a moving circle of people, hustled right by me. I was too short to see who was the subject of all that scrutiny, but it was no doubt Someone Very Important. And what I was thinking was this: "Do we really think that bringing the Olympics here in 2012 is such a great idea?" If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's the one-liner: The bigwigs on the Deciding-Where- to-Host-the-Olympics Committee (not their real name) have recently narrowed down the North American candidates for the 2012 Games to either New York or San Francisco. New York's proposed plans for bringing the Games here include building an Olympic Stadium on the West Side, raising an Olympic Village over in Queens, holding the triathlon in Central Park, and constructing some sort of an "Olympic Rail System" to cart people around between all the different sites. Now, I love the Olympics. They're dandy. On TV. But seriously, don't we have enough problems here? As if the traffic isn't bad enough, as if we don't have enough people, enough buildings, or enough security concerns here, they want to bring the Olympics into town? Excuse me, but are you nuts? I do understand why everyone loves having the Olympics in town. It's great for hometown pride, and it really brings in the tourists and (more importantly) the big tourists' bucks for years to come. Building all that cool new Olympic stuff can really put a nice shine on the town (case in point: Atlanta, GA) and bring international focus to a town that people from outside the area might otherwise not know so well. A town that people don't really know so well. Hello, Albertville, Calgary, Nagano. But does New York really need any more media attention? Turn on your TVs, people. "Friends" does not take place in Tampa. "Sex and the City" does not refer to the city of Minneapolis. Watch the news! Go to the movies! We're New York! People will always want to visit New York, right? Maybe this is in part spurred by some drum-up-the-tourism initiative, if tourism has fallen since last September, but come on now. It's not like we're Salt Lake City, here. As if we didn't already have enough people, now they want to cart in a hundred thousand more. Really, part of me thinks it would be kind of neat to have the Olympics here, but the dominant sentiment is selfish and petty, in that I'd really rather not have all those people from around the globe descend on the city, bringing the inevitable headache and daily delays inherent in any big event. I mean, yeah, it would be sweet, and maybe I could get tickets to one of the Track and Field events, or Diving, or Gymnastics. Or, I could save some money, watch it on TV like I do every year, and avoid getting frisked. What it comes down to is this. If they choose New York, I'll be happy, in that "our city fucking rules!" kind of way. And then I'll whine for ten years. If they give it to San Francisco, however, I can feel magnanimous. "New York fucking rules! So let San Francisco host, they need it more, those poor suckers." Is there an age minimum for being a curmudgeon? xo Michelle |
Monday . September 16 . 2002 . 8:36pm |
nyc 2012 Last week, on my way down to a methadone clinic as part of my adolescent medicine rotation, I was walking along midtown on the East Side, late for work. Really, I should have been on time, dropped off steps from the clinic by one of the hospital shuttles, but the traffic that day was so horrible that I just jumped ship, as soon as I realized that I could get out and crawl faster than the van was moving through the streets. Turns out pedestrian traffic was only slightly better, as President Bush, Kofi Annan, and assorted world leaders had all descended upon the city, and I was right near the U.N. Security was swarming everywhere. A handful of people staged a somewhat lackadaisical protest, Make History Not War, that sort of thing, as they were guarded by far too many NYPD officers for the number of protesters and the energy of their efforts. As I waited for a light to turn green, a tight knot of television cameras, all pointed towards the inside of a moving circle of people, hustled right by me. I was too short to see who was the subject of all that scrutiny, but it was no doubt Someone Very Important. And what I was thinking was this: "Do we really think that bringing the Olympics here in 2012 is such a great idea?" If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's the one-liner: The bigwigs on the Deciding-Where- to-Host-the-Olympics Committee (not their real name) have recently narrowed down the North American candidates for the 2012 Games to either New York or San Francisco. New York's proposed plans for bringing the Games here include building an Olympic Stadium on the West Side, raising an Olympic Village over in Queens, holding the triathlon in Central Park, and constructing some sort of an "Olympic Rail System" to cart people around between all the different sites. Now, I love the Olympics. They're dandy. On TV. But seriously, don't we have enough problems here? As if the traffic isn't bad enough, as if we don't have enough people, enough buildings, or enough security concerns here, they want to bring the Olympics into town? Excuse me, but are you nuts? I do understand why everyone loves having the Olympics in town. It's great for hometown pride, and it really brings in the tourists and (more importantly) the big tourists' bucks for years to come. Building all that cool new Olympic stuff can really put a nice shine on the town (case in point: Atlanta, GA) and bring international focus to a town that people from outside the area might otherwise not know so well. A town that people don't really know so well. Hello, Albertville, Calgary, Nagano. But does New York really need any more media attention? Turn on your TVs, people. "Friends" does not take place in Tampa. "Sex and the City" does not refer to the city of Minneapolis. Watch the news! Go to the movies! We're New York! People will always want to visit New York, right? Maybe this is in part spurred by some drum-up-the-tourism initiative, if tourism has fallen since last September, but come on now. It's not like we're Salt Lake City, here. As if we didn't already have enough people, now they want to cart in a hundred thousand more. Really, part of me thinks it would be kind of neat to have the Olympics here, but the dominant sentiment is selfish and petty, in that I'd really rather not have all those people from around the globe descend on the city, bringing the inevitable headache and daily delays inherent in any big event. I mean, yeah, it would be sweet, and maybe I could get tickets to one of the Track and Field events, or Diving, or Gymnastics. Or, I could save some money, watch it on TV like I do every year, and avoid getting frisked. What it comes down to is this. If they choose New York, I'll be happy, in that "our city fucking rules!" kind of way. And then I'll whine for ten years. If they give it to San Francisco, however, I can feel magnanimous. "New York fucking rules! So let San Francisco host, they need it more, those poor suckers." Is there an age minimum for being a curmudgeon? xo Michelle |
