New York City not bidding on 2024 Summer Olympic Games
A view of rail yards in NYC where a proposed Olympic stadium would have been built. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
A member of New York City's Mayor Bill de Blasio's staff says the city will not submit a bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympic Games.
Alicia Glen, who is the city's deputy mayor for housing and economic development, said New York decided against a bid after reviewing pros and cons of bidding for and hosting the Olympics. New York City had a failed bid to host the 2012 Summer Games, which eventually went to London.
"But I think when you actually ask the average New Yorker on the street whether or not the city should be focusing its planning effort, its infrastructure effort, its policing, its transportation around an event that will happen for three weeks in the summer 10 years from now, versus getting down to business with all of the challenges and opportunities we have in front of us right now, I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of New Yorkers would say, 'I'd rather watch it on my big screen TV at home,'" Glen said, via the Wall Street Journal.
The 2016 Games will be held in Rio de Janeiro, and the 2020 Games will be held in Tokyo.
Bidding for 2024 Summer Games is scheduled to start next year, with the International Olympic Committee choosing a city in 2017. The United States has not hosted a Summer Olympic Games since 1996, when it was held in Atlanta.
