February 24, 2005

IOC visits New York City amid infighting over the biggest planned Olympic venue

NEW YORK

In the midst of the wining and dining, the celebrity schmoozing and the jazz at Lincoln Center, the 13 delegates charged with selecting a host city for the 2012 Summer Games visited the epicentre of New York’s Olympic bid infighting: Madison Square Garden.

“The World’s Most Famous Arena” serves incongruously as a prime piece of the city’s Olympic proposal — and the focal point of efforts to scuttle the stadium construction so vital to landing the games.

The arena’s owners remain locked in a bitter feud with the city’s Olympic bid organizers and the mayor over the biggest planned Olympic venue, the proposed West Side stadium. They fear the new stadium, just a few blocks west of the Garden, could cut into their business.

Nonetheless, a warm reception was provided at the Garden for the International Olympic Committee during its four-day tour of New York, one of five cities vying for the Olympics. The committee already toured Madrid and London, with Moscow and Paris left to visit before its July 6 decision in Singapore.

New York officials razzled and dazzled the delegates, including dinner and drinks at the Upper East Side town house of Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The committee stayed at the Plaza Hotel overlooking Central Park from Sunday night through Thursday.

Events kicked off Monday with a Rockefeller Center pep rally near its famed skating rink, as the IOC members spent the day in meetings at the Plaza. Former senator Bill Bradley, a 1964 basketball gold medallist, addressed the IOC group a day later.

On Wednesday night, the delegation enjoyed a night of entertainment at Jazz at Lincoln Center followed by dinner with the mayor. And from their hotel, the visitors enjoyed a view of “The Gates,” the art installation spread across 23 miles of Central Park footpaths.

The city is already swathed in Olympic logos and signs promoting its bid. Billboards, bus shelters and street poles are decorated, along with the city’s 4,000 subway cars, 7,000 buses and 13,000 medallion taxi cabs.

“New York City pulled out all the stops for this critical visit,” said Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff, the prime mover behind the city’s Olympic bid.

Visits were made to all the Olympic venues, although the biggest one — the proposed West Side stadium that would eventually be home to the New York Jets — remains nothing more than an architect’s vision.

Nowhere is opposition to the stadium more vehement than inside the Garden, property of the Dolan family owned Cablevision and proposed home of Olympic basketball.

The Dolans are doing everything possible to undercut the proposed stadium on the Hudson River, from hiring lobbyists to making their own pre-emptive $600 million (U.S.) bid for the property.

Tempers in the feud between the Garden and the mayor have grown short of late.

Last week, Bloomberg attacked the Dolans as un-American for their efforts to undermine the project.

“This company says, ‘To hell with America. We don’t care,’ ” the mayor said of Cablevision.

Both sides downplayed the significance of the delegation’s visit to the Garden.

The Associated Press

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