Bloomberg delivers stadium eulogy

By Robert Kahn
STAFF WRITER

June 8, 2005

Mayor Michael Bloomberg delivered a terse and impassioned eulogy for the proposed West Side stadium Tuesday, saying it was now up to the United States Olympic Committee to decide if the city should withdraw its bid for the 2012 summer games.

"We have let down America," the mayor said outside City College, where supporters of the Abyssinian Development Corp. gathered for the 11th annual Harlem Renaissance Day of Commitment.

"The USOC selected New York to represent the country and we won because people had confidence that New Yorkers would be able to do things. But it turned out that we, unfortunately, were not able to."

Amid the city's fading chances to best Paris or London in the International Olympic Committee's July 6 decision, Bloomberg reminded onlookers that a selection team had only Monday issued a glowing report declaring that New York had "as good a chance as anybody else" to win the Olympics -- contingent on approval of the $2.2-billion Jets stadium.

"Now that that's not the case, I don't know how you go forward," he said. "We would be very unlikely to be selected without an Olympic stadium guaranteed."

Darryl Seibel, a spokesman for the USOC, said officials are studying how to proceed in light of the developments.

Bloomberg said any whirlwind effort to find a replacement location before the IOC's decision would be fruitless, because the committee doesn't allow for contingencies.

The mayor also repeated his insistence that the city would not build an athletic facility with public money.

"This was one of the best investments we could ever make," he said. "There are others that will pay us back -- but not as good as this one."

City Council Speaker Gifford Miller, who is a mayoral candidate, said that he was pleased "sanity seems to have prevailed" and that the next item on the table is for the state to cancel its contract with the Jets.

"The real point now is for the mayor to back off this obsession and not leave all this money on the table that the MTA's had to give up," he said.

"The Jets control a $1-billion property they got for $250 million. That contract needs to be canceled and put back out for bid," he said.

Meanwhile, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn/Queens), another candidate for mayor, said the end of the West Side stadium plan should help, not hurt, the city's Olympics bid.

He said the city should quickly build a consensus for a stadium at Willets Point. He said he wrote a letter to the International Olympic Committee guaranteeing, although he did not say how, that a stadium and a broadcasting center would be built if the IOC picked the city.

Assemb. Jose Peralta (D-Jackson Heights) also urged the city to consider Willets Point.

In the now increasingly likely event that the city's 2012 bid is rejected, Bloomberg said it was doubtful New York would make a proposal for the 2016 Olympics.

"After this it would be difficult to convince the USOC that New York would actually deliver," he said.