New Yorkers whose hopes of getting the 2012 Olympics were dashed this week will surely rally around London. But it is still going to require a major effort for some of the city's leaders to get past their personal disappointment. Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff - the bid's chief architect - and Mayor Michael Bloomberg expended a great deal of time and energy trying to bring the Olympics here. But the city's bid was always a dark horse at best, and in the end New York finished fourth among the five competing cities.
It's easy to come up with reasons why New York did so poorly. Organizers never really managed to communicate their excitement to the public, and Olympic delegates took note. Insisting that the main stadium could be built only as part of a plan to move the Jets to the West Side of Manhattan was a huge mistake. When that plan fell apart, the scramble to get a backup site may have forced officials to sign onto an overly costly deal with the Mets for a new baseball stadium in Queens.
Still, the failed Olympic pursuit had value. An Olympic stadium on the West Side was a bad idea, but it is good that the mayor's enthusiasm for the site drew attention to an underdeveloped slice of the city. Now rezoned, that area will get residential and other construction. The Olympic pursuit also helped to speed the rezoning of Brooklyn's waterfront and moved along other projects that would otherwise have been sidelined, maybe for years.
With the city budget in distress, it's questionable whether other desirable large projects, like the extension of the No. 7 subway line, can get beyond the planning stage without another large impetus. Of course, New York, a little older and wiser, could get back in the ring and try to win the 2016 Games.