{"id":318486,"date":"2026-08-11T09:32:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T09:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/318486\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T09:32:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T09:32:08","slug":"editors-note-the-thrill-of-olympic-defeat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/318486\/","title":{"rendered":"Editor\u2019s note: The thrill of Olympic defeat"},"content":{"rendered":"

I may not be an Olympic-caliber weightlifter, but I trained like one the day that \u201cThe Urbanist\u201d arrived at my desk. The massive tome is more coffee-table book than paperback, but it rivals \u201cThe Power Broker\u201d in its pure, physical mass \u2013 and that\u2019s not by accident. \u201cThe Urbanist\u201d<\/a> profiles Dan Doctoroff as a modern-day Robert Moses. One of Mike Bloomberg\u2019s deputy mayors, Doctoroff physically transformed New York City. And his catalyst was a bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a truism among five borough boosters that New York City reaped benefits<\/a> from the bid, even if we ultimately lost out to London. Hudson Yards and the No. 7 train extension. Housing on the Long Island City waterfront. The NYC Ferry and the Bronx Terminal Market. All of it was kick-started by Doctoroff\u2019s dream of hosting the Olympics.<\/p>\n

And the optimistic side of me hopes that\u2019s what happens with the nascent bid to host the 2042 Winter Olympics<\/a> \u2013 an effort that City & State\u2019s Kate Lisa wrote about in this week\u2019s cover story. The Winter Games are smaller in scope than the summer ones, but this bid would be bigger in geography, stretching from the Big Apple to the North Country.<\/p>\n

My own Olympic dreams were shattered last time I visited Lake Placid. I had skied a few runs at Whiteface Mountain before I slipped on an icy catwalk and pulled a muscle in my back. I spent the afternoon nursing a beer with my friend who\u2019d just torn her ACL on the slopes.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s hope New York\u2019s bid doesn\u2019t faceplant the same way. We\u2019ll be following along the whole time, watching as this long-term project barrels down the mountain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I may not be an Olympic-caliber weightlifter, but I trained like one the day that \u201cThe Urbanist\u201d arrived…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[6492,9,24,63,299,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-318486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-editors-note","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-opinion","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}