Olympics: Hell's Kitchen Unveils "Olympic" Logo

Manhattan Hell's Kitchen activists today unveiled their version of a New York City's Olympic Logo, which will compete with NYC2012's new logo, also unveiled today. The Hell's Kitchen Olympic logo is a variation of a similar logo first used by Australian activists during the 2000 Sydney games. Stating "Neighborhoods, not Stadiums," the logo represents five interlocking homes similar to the five interlocking Olympic rings. While the Olympic rings represent continents, the interlocking homes represent tenants and home-owners in New York's five boroughs.

"Our logo represents more of the real world," stated John Fisher of the Clinton Special District Coalition, a member of the West Side Coalition comprising 42 community-based organizations fighting the proposed West Side stadium.

"Our message is to fix NYC2012's Olympic bid, or perhaps lose the bid when the International Olympic Committee votes for the city to host the 2012 Olympic games in July 2005," he stated.

"Our neighborhoods will not go quiety," according to Fisher. "If the IOC thinks they can pull another Atlanta, they're going to learn something about the tenacity of New Yorkers."

The Hell's Kitchen Olympic logo also draws parallels between New York and Olympism. Fisher noted that many prior Olympiads have left a legacy of displacement of both residential and small businesses. It's already been reported that Beijing, in its preparation for the 2008 summer games, has already displaced up to 300,000 residents.

Perhaps the largest displacement legacy was Soeul, South Korea, whose 1988 games displaced 720,000 individuals. The Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (www.cohre.org) maintains records of forced evictions world-wide through international events and reports that various Olympiads have left a legacy of violations of international housing rights.

To those who think it can't happen in the United States, the 1996 Atlanta games evicted and/or displaced anywhere between 15,000 to 30,000 residents -- from wholesale condemnation of apartment complexes to individual landlords evicting tenants hoping to take advantage of short-stay high-paying Olympic tourists.

Displacment is expected on Manhattan's West Side in the wake of Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff's Hudson Yards scheme where ultimately 20,000 residents of the area could face displacement pressures from the anticipated skyscraper village. According to Fisher, secondary displacement is often more egregious than primary on-site displacement.

In Brooklyn, up to 864 residents face having their homes condemned and handed over to private developer Bruce Ratner for his Nets basketball team arena that would also double as an Olympic venue.

Housing advocates are concerned that the weakened rent stabilization system will be at further risk from Olympic pressures when the rent regulatory enabling legislation expires in 2011.

The Olympic Slogan is "Higher, Faster, Stronger." In New York the experience already translates to "Higher Taxes, Swifter Evictions and Stronger Political Influence."

While the Olympics are portrayed as being "warm and fuzzy," often on the same level as the American flag, mom and apple pie, Olympiads are more often than not really about corporate welfare and real estate. In their destructive wake, Olympiads give politicians and developers opportunities to mask their efforts to bulldoze otherwise stable low and middle-income neighborhoods under the guise of international brotherhood and sportsmanship. Such areas are often falsely described as "blighted" -- or in NYC's case as "wastelands."

Olympic athletes are often trotted out to support that mission, perhaps unaware of the legacy they may leave to those who built the city they are claiming to support.

While NYC2012 often uses the phrase that New York is the "World's Second Home," it must be remembered that such movements should not adversely affect those who make it their first home. Unfortunately the long experience of recent Olympiads is that this is too likely to happen.