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Make way for Olympians: Duckling statues would be off limits to public during Games
By adamg on Fri, 01/23/2015 - 11:00am
That's Charles Street on the left. See it larger.
Plans released by Boston 2024 show most of the Common and a significant portion of the Public Garden - including the Make Way for Ducklings statues - off limits to the public during the Olympics. Construction of a 16,000-seat beach-volleyball stadium and related structures, meanwhile, would shut the ball fields and other parts of the Common for months before the games.
The plans also show Charles Street shut for both access to the beach volleyball and for the start and finish of the Olympic marathon. The Public Garden along Charles would also be within the "secure perimeter," with a ticket gate for spectators between the Lagoon and Mrs. Mallard.
Frog Pond would also be shut to the public, according to the Boston 2024 proposal. The Frog Pond playground might still be open, though. The Public Garden Lagoon and the Swan Boats dock would be outside the fence, although many people would have to take a roundabout way to get to the dock because the path from Charles would be shut.
The volleyball stadium, intended as a temporary structure, would sit mainly on the ball fields along Charles,with a number of structures planned for the large grassy fields by the parking-garage entrances. This would leave the trees now along Charles, but might require chopping down some trees deeper inside the Common.
The red line shows the security perimeter:
The Olympic marathon would start and finish on the Beacon Street side of Charles Street and wend its way through the Back Bay, downtown, South Boston, the North End, Cambridge, Allston and Brookline.
Athletes and Olympic panjandrums would have access to the venues via dedicated lanes on the turnpike, Stuart Street and Charles Street (the plans seem to indicate the Common garage would be used for their vehicles; the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority, which owns the garage, is an enthusiastic backer of the Olympics proposal). Spectators could use any of the nearby Red, Orange and Green Line stops.
Boston 2024 sports venue proposal (70.5M PDF).
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Comments
Olympics
The more I see of the proposal the more I dislike it. The powers that be seem to think that they can run roughshod over everyone to achieve their grandiose plans.
Take large swaths of land, close large sections of the city, fundamentally change historic parts of the city all without meaningful public input.
The tourism industry in
The tourism industry in Boston would be DEAD the months before and after the Olympics because people would not have access to much of what makes Boston appealing. London experienced fewer tourists in 2012 because the olympics rightfully scared away tourists. Imagine being a small business near the common when its closed off for a year?
How queer are The Olympics?...
How queer are The Olympics?... queer in the sense an umbrella term for sexual and gender minorities that are not heterosexual or cisgender
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer
Not even a tangent
You must have posted in the wrong spot -- or the wrong thread -- or the wrong site.
he's always
off base and in the clouds.
Today's Price of Tea in China is 2.29! It's gone up.
Not always
His recent comments about library staff speech restrictions got a +1 from me.
Olympic brands your butt!
There is a side story to the fact that when, what is now called The Gay Games, wanted to use the name, The Gay Olympics, one of the Olympic corporations (the word Committee is Orwellian doublspeak) sued. Their claim was that they control the use of the word Olympic in any kind of branding.
That the term that refers to events dating back millenia of course was not significant. Public domain is meaningless when greed and bigotry join together.
Undetectable doping, could it affect gender/sexuality ?...
Undetectable doping, could it affect gender/sexuality ?...
Meds. Try 'em.
Meds. Try 'em.
Hey, at least he
didn't complain about the lack of stenographic records for events that happen on the Common.
He had another good post today....
... about the Lake Placid Olympic Vilage -- turned (mostly) into a prison.
That was always the plan for
That was always the plan for it. This is >30 year old "news". Stupid.
Who said it was "news"?
Thanks for your insult.
What's the point?
Obviously the entire Public Garden and Common would be off limits and shut irrespective of this drawing. How would they even put up a fence without destroying the spaces?
My fear would be that they'd consider the ducklings a part of Boston 2024 and say that even having a photo of them in a store window (irrespective of the Olympics) would be considered infringing upon the Boston 2024 and must be removed.
Given what they did in London how can the Olympics be run constitutionally? The IOC wants the state/city to pass and enforce laws that specifically are banned by 1st amendment. Just look at what Walsh has already signed.
1st Amendment? 4th?
What's that?
If the Boston Police can conduct suspicionless searches to anyone getting near the marathon route, do you really foresee a problem with closing off to non-participants or non-spectators large swaths of the city, and checkpoints being set up all over town?
What if they live inside the perimiter?
I don't believe for a second that the restricted areas will be limited to the footprints of the venues. What sort of legal chicanery will that demand - forcing people away from their houses?
Sucks to be them then, I
Sucks to be them then, I guess.
All joking aside, would you honestly be surprised at any restrictions and checkpoints in the name of "security"?
I can just see it now
SecurityThespian: Sorry, but you can't bring in more than three ounces of liquids ...
Homeowner (or short-term renter): BUT I'M OUT OF GROCERIES AND MY DOG NEEDS FOOD!
Is that even possible?
Someone (maybe the city? the artist?) must own the copyright for the ducklings, and gods know they've already been photographed, and those photos are often subject to copyright themselves. I can't see how the Olympic committee could appropriate the actual ducklings or a replica thereof as a protected trademark or symbol of the Olympics, although they could perhaps create a unique art piece incorporating an image of the ducklings and then copyright that.
Fortunately that's one wee bit of Boston well protected by law.
Laws? The IOC knows no Laws
When I was in London for the olympics it was crazy how many things where banned. A store couldn't put out a sign with a caulk drawing of one of the sports. The IOC won't consider a location until they have laws signed that essentially say that they have the right to determine which counts as their trademark and not.
Read this article on Britain's Brand Police:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/britain-flooded-with-bran...
interesting
I realize that what we're discussing with the ducklings is small beans compared to people losing jobs at Widett Square, but I actually do think the ducklings are protected. Looking at the article, and the foolishness the IOC was up to, I still think that the IOC could not appropriate the actual ducklings or an accurate facsimile of the ducklings unless they bought the copyright or made arrangements with the copyright holder, and copyright of a work of art is not subject to eminent domain.
As silly and overzealous as some of the citations in the Independent article are, they are pretty straightforward bans on people trying to either falsely claim affiliation with the Olympics for profit, or use language invoking the Olympics as a sales technique (the latter should not be banned, in my view, but I think there is already case law on this in the US-- will defer to a lawyer to respond).
While the IOC took an overbearing, arrogant, but probably borderline legal attitude towards the use of words that have a clear relationship to the Olympics when in the vicinity of the Olympics (like the words "Gold" and "Silver"), and trademark names like Coca-Cola have their own set or protections anyway, the ducklings are not inherently part of the Olympics. And, because the ducklings are already protected by copyright, they cannot be hijacked for Olympic use.
In short, unlike "Cowboy UP!" (remember that?) a third party can't waltz in and claim the Ducklings-- they are already claimed.
However, the IOC could, perhaps, hire an artist to do an oil painting of the ducklings passing the Olympic torch from one to another, buy the copyright from the artist, use it to sell t-shirts, and sue anyone who uses it without IOC permission.
I have a postcard showing the ducklings dressed in Sox gear. I've had it for years, and who knows how old it is. And this image is protected-- I cannot use it for profit, I cannot publish it uncredited, I cannot use it to sell cars. And the IOC cannot snag this image, created years before the Boston Olympics were wetdreamed up, and claim that the photographer or current copyright holder has no right to it.
However, if the same photographer made a bunch of tiny Olympic medals, photographed the ducks wearing them, and sold t-shirts with the photos, the hypersensitive IOC probably would have a case that the photographer illegally used their trademarked symbol. Copyright would not cover a depiction of the medal under these circumstances, but trademark might.
Lawyers: I'm basing this mostly on my experience dealing with copyrighted material-- books, personal papers, and art-- in my work in libraries, archives and museums. Please weigh in on anything I have wrong, or other considerations I've missed.
PPS: I'm a little sad the Combat Zone is gone-- I would have loved to hear the court case over how "Gold," "Silver," "Rings," and "Triathlon" are being misused.
Anybody like Greek pizza?
This place would have to change its name.
Also this one.
This one too.
Probably this one, as well.
This one might escape notice.
Those are all pizza parlors (and there are more of them.) There are a raft of places that don't have pizza in their names, but do have Olympic or Olympian, and under the IOC's new laws, they would have to change their names, just as the ones in London did.
sigh
Sounds like the Gestapo... private entity forcing other private businesses to change their name.
I wonder who will pay for that.. and I bet the USOC/IOC isn't one of them. ;)
Makes me wonder...
...if Seattle ever hosted the Olympics, would they have to rename an entire peninsula and mountain range?
I'll be damned-- Adam, BostonDog, & perruptor...
... I work with copyright and patent issues a lot and find them interesting, so I decided to look into Olympic terminology & symbol usage (because: nerd). I know a lot less about trademarking.
So, guess what? The following words and images have not only been trademarked for the Olympics since 1978 but a special law (The Amateur Sports Act) was created at that time to give the trademark protections extra ooomph. Adam mentioned some of these earlier, I think:
See The Trademark Act of 1946, As Amended (US Patent & Trademark Office) http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/law/Trademark_Statutes.pdf
Perruptor, lest you wonder, the 30 day period in which your pizza joints can contest a trademark has passed, much like the author off the Amateur Sports Act of 1978...
... Alaska's own Ted Stevens, a man who knew a thing or two about playing footsy with developers. In addition to the words trademarked above, the Act also protects various incarnations of images of the torch, symbols and words for the Paralympics, and other bits & pieces missing from the Trademark submission.
BUT ALL IS NOT LOST! Were the pizza joints opened before September 1, 1950? They are probably protected. Or, if
SO, of all the Olympic Pizza places you found, only one has a problem, but it's a serious one.
This guy in Hyde Park violates USC 220506(D)(3)(a) by combining the name AND the image of the torch. It was the second link you provided. He's kinda screwed.
See what I mean here: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/36/220506
Steven's whole masterwork: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/36/220501
Of course it's possible.
Of course it's possible. Intellectual property rights are directly proportional to the size of the corporation involved.
reproduction rights
When artists sell their work they can also sell the right to reproduce images of the work, or keep that right, or sell it to a third party. In this case, I'd bet the Olympics are buying or licensing it.
perhaps
I haven't heard that the Olympic committee is interested in licensing the statues, but who knows? I'm not going to say anything about counting eggs...
I love the ducklings, mostly because of the librarian thing, and they would be one of my first choices for a symbol of the city. However, I don't think that they invoke "*BOSTON*!!!" the way that, say, the Old North Church does. Or the Swan Boats. Using the ducklings would be like going to Paris and saying,"Let's not use that old metal tower to capture the essence of Paris! Let's use Jean-Paul Sartre's grave at Montparnasse on the tshirts!"
May I point out that it seems
May I point out that it seems that a Suffolk University dorm will have a direct view into the beach volleyball area, meaning that for the first time in the history of Suffolk University, they may see a tripling of the number of male students opting to stay on campus for summer school in 2024?
Sure
Assuming they don't invoke terrorism fears and forcibly remove everyone with a sightline to any of the events.
I would not be surprised if
I would not be surprised if they charge the residents who have a clear sight-line for not paying to view the event.
A far more likely situation
There would be no students in that dorm for the entire summer. They would be sent off at the end of the semester, not to return until the fall. That dorm would be used for event housing - and premium event housing, at that.
Adam, You are not being fair.
Stop letting everyone know what an incredible poo show this will be for the average person of Greater Boston.
It is nice to know that we can turn someplace for the facts over the spoutings from Gramma on Morrissey Boulevard. The Globe is fast losing its soul with their incessant pom pom waving for this taxpayer funded, liberties denying, money grubbing, fizzy water promotion orgy known as the Olympic Games.
poll results
Agree UH is turning into a preaching to the converted forum, but i think this is important work. I have reason to believe that the poll results for olympic support are mainly due to misunderstanding the dire consequences of engaging in this olympic venture. We have a civic duty to review the bid in an impartial fashion.
Holy God...
At first glance I thought this was an Onion article.
That marathon route is
That marathon route is hilarious. It just keeps getting worse and worse for citizens.
That's why we need to make it
That's why we need to make it known to our officials, politicians, the planning committee, the IOC, etc., that we will not allow the Olympics to take place here under the terms of this proposal.
IOC to Boston....
Drop dead (in 2024, but only for 3 weeks or so).
Where are the livestock exhibition buildings?
This looks like your standard county/state fairgrounds without the fried dough and corndog stands.
There will be a lot of mature trees that will have to be destroyed for that overgrown beystadium, too.
Wait a minute?
Why don't we just move the whole shebang to the Big E grounds?
#WestSpringfield2024
Jesus that's a brilliant idea
Jesus that's a brilliant idea
Very Bad Location
Historic landmarks like the Boston Common and Public Garden should not be used for Olympic sporting events. Isn't it against the law to hold events on the Common where a ticket price is charged? Why not use Franklin Park?
What makes you think that?
There was a ticketed "Concerts on the Common" series for years in the 80s.
Ticketed Events
I believe the law was fairly recent and maybe came about because of those concerts in the 80's.
Could be. I'd imagine that
Could be. I'd imagine that the law will get reversed toot sweet if the Olympics are coming to town, so, non-issue.
Rules on use not clear?
I think there are major restrictions on what can and can't be done on the Common, even though it "belongs to the people". I think some of it has to do with if it's "temporary" or permanent.
They had to get an act of legislature to allow for the restaurant on the Common. The Frogg Pond skating rink and carousel may be exempt because they aren't there "permanently" - just every year.
I think the 2024 people would request an exemption. And, I think the legislature would probably approve. I've yet to hear any elected official say, "No." about any of this.
Where are
All of the Beacon Hill residents that flipped @$^& over sidewalk accessibility on this? Seems like they'd be a good group to spearhead the "Oh HELL no" campaign.
Calling Bob Leponge...
but, seriously...I think they may be more up in arms about the dog parks disappearing, although we have not heard a toot about that, as of yet.
On the other hand, the Common hosts many of the homeless* who will be oh, well, unfortunately (who gives a bleep, anyway) displaced (*which will probably be still around in 2024)...methinks The Hill might just see an influx...which is not necessary a bad thing...
Of course people are on it.
Opposition is quite strong in the neighborhood, and the neighborhood has a lot of political juice that would be diluted and squandered by attempting to try this case in the media.
My personal position, and I don't speak for any organization or institution: I don't need to look at the bid. Why? Because the creators of the bid document know it inside and out, and they decided to try to keep it secret. Which means that they know the public isn't going to like it if the public sees it. Which means it's a bad deal for the public. If it were a good deal for the public, the sponsors would be publishing it all over the place and spending their PR dollars on getting people to read it.
That's good to hear
I may be joining in soon.
The bid documents are worth reading
Before they were released, my reaction to the possibility of Boston 2024 was somewhere between "neutral" and "mildly intrigued." After I started reading them, it quickly swung to "Hell No - these folks have no idea what they are doing."
If you're going to oppose something, it's good to know *what* you are opposing, and *why*.
Beacon Hill Civic Association reaction
from the same Herald article:
Good God.
I having a problem with a public spaces, such as the Common, as well as the Public Garden being off limits to the public to host this silliness.
That and the potential of mature and healthy trees being cut down in the Common to allow this suckfest to happen...I am mortified beyond expression.
Wake me up when it is over.
Yep, this is the part that
Yep, this is the part that bothers me most. Use BCEC and Harvard's stadiums, fine. Traffic will suck but at least it's somewhat understandable. But taking a public space and closing it off to the public, the people who live here and use it year round? Ridiculous.
And like you point out, I can't see how this could be good environmentally. But sustainable olympics, right?
I have a problem with the
I have a problem with the potential permanent damage, and the possibility some of these "temporary" facilities aren't all that temporary.
Lots of things disrupt the city, good and bad. Sometimes we don't have access to public facilities. The length of this disruption is onerous, but I get the feeling that is going to be one of the weakest arguments against the Olympics in the eyes of the pro-Olympics group. Make arguments for money lost, permanent displacement, and irreparable harm to neighborhoods and neighborhood treasures, ie the Common & Franklin Park.
Yeah, I live right across
Yeah, I live right across from the Common, parts of it get closed all the time for e.g. movie shoots. There are good arguments against the bid, this is not one of them.
My dog had better be able to poop somewhere ...
yes
But a movie shoot wont occupy the Common for months on end.
Movie shoot maybe a couple of days at most. Maybe a week? Not 4-5 months or more.
Big difference.
Hey, it happens in Bridgeport every summer...
...the locals lose access to the entire (Olmstead-designed) Seaside Park for a week every July (and also some access to part of the local beach area) just so Bridgeport can host The Gathering of the Vibes.
All they get in return is a $75 3-day city resident reduced rate ticket (a considerable discount over the full ticket prices, but there's no alternative one-day discounted ticket available for those who can't afford even that and/or don't want to go all 3 days).
It'll always be about the $ and {bleep} the locals...
Wake me up when it is over.
No, everybody needs to wake up last week and get to work.
Massive disruption
Besides the economic issues , the freedom of speech issues, and all the lies by the IOC and local officials , the biggest issue is the massive disruption to our lives and jobs.
Take the massive disruption of one annual event, the Boston Marathon, which disrupts many of our lives for the day of the Marathon and perhaps one day before and after.
Now take that disruption multiplied by the number of Olympic venues and events for two weeks plus set up and take down. You do the math.
Jobs, especially
How on *earth* are people going to get to work the entire summer before and after the Olympics, what with all the security checkpoints and closures on city streets?
I worked in the Theatre District and the Fenway while living in Allston, and getting to work on Marathon Monday, any day of a sports victory parade, or during a Red Sox playoffs game was a chore. And that was pre-2013 events that caused security to skyrocket.
Is this going to mean the entire city shuts down and most of its residents move out for months? Because that is unrealistic.
Fuck This
^
"This is a terrible idea" - Henry Lee
Today's Herald has reaction from Friends of the Public Garden and the Beacon Hill Civic Association:
The Herald may yet have a bright future in our city if it becomes the voice of the anti-Olympics movement. At times like this, I'm glad we still have it.
Globe needs to be renamed....
... the Daily Olympics Shill.
Thanks goodness..
voices of reason. However, it is all about the $$$ and that is what worries me.
Is this a done deal? I truly hope not. I am getting this sinking suspicion that there is not much healthy debate about the pros and cons of this going on.
Not a done deal
That won't be until 2017, when the IOC picks a city - and we are up against other cities.
Better ones, too
The IOC is under pressure to pick the first South American or African Olympic city, so we're far from the first pick.
Uh...
Rio is 2016.
Rio de Janiero is hosting in 2016
I think a few African cities are interested in 2024.
A couple weeks... 9 years from now
A growing refrain I hear from nay-sayers and skeptics is that they can't possibly be inconvenienced for three weeks. Nine years from now.
Look -- Boston Common is a treasure in our great city, but I think we can all agree that in its current state, it is far from a gem. Even in the warmer months, the park is rife with bald stretches of grass, dying trees, uneven walkways, and overflowing trash barrels. I don't intend to criticize the park's custodians and conservators, it's just that in an era of limited funds, it's impossible to maintain such a heavily visited public park the way everyone would want.
Why not take this opportunity for the Olympics to clean the place up a little bit, throw in some much needed upgrades, and bear with it being off-limits for a couple weeks? As things currently stand, a large section of it has been roped off for rehabiliation every summer anyways. Use the next 9 years to figure out alternate arrangements for those couple weeks.
And which Common are you visiting?
I walk in the area and through the area in all the seasons and it looks pretty good to me. I see it being cleaned by city workers. Yeah, there are patches of dead grass but that happens. As well as dead trees, which are eventually removed. Uneven walkways? Where? Upper Beacon Street proper is not the Common, my friend.
And it is a gem. A historical gem.
I don't think I personally need the Olympics to "clean the place up". Thank you very much. And leave the damn trees alone.
You see, people have a
You see, people have a problem with big old trees because the roots stick up out of the ground and that makes it unfair to people who have mobility issues or prefer to wear pointy heels wherever they go. So we should take down ALL of the trees and pave over ALL of the parks because otherwise it just isn't fair and you're a selfish piece of garbage for appreciating a little nature in the city and the roots and dirt and uneveness that comes with it!
Upgrade?
Why is building a stadium in the Common considered an "upgrade"? A few weeks? Try months of disruption.
Probably at least a year....
... taking into account site preparation, building, disassembly, and (hopefully) site restoration (which will be a pretty massive job) -- possibly a couple of years of disruption.
It's not a couple weeks, though
We're not talking about a carnival that shows up one night, unpacks, spends two weeks here and then leaves (or like that revival tent that seems to show up every summer on the Tremont Street side).
It's going to take months to build that stadium and it's going to take a long time to take it down.
And I suspect the security restrictions will start well before the athletes arrive as well.
How will this proposal improve the Common?
I'm all for sprucing up the Common, and if bringing the Olympics to Boston speeds that process along, fine.
But this proposal *damages* the Common.
Explain to us why
we can't hold beach volleyball (IMO one of the most idiotic "events" of the Games) on an actual beach?
That to me is the biggest flaw in the whole plan to descrate the Common.
Well, we are talking about our Boston beaches...
... there's a risk of tripping over a body.
How does putting in a stadium
How does putting in a stadium improve the grass? London lost access to public areas for years leading up to their olympics. If you think we will only lose the common for a few weeks then you are clueless.
How?
How does building a stadium and stands help improve a park?
Boston is near the ocean. Why doesn't the proposal have beach volleyball on an actual beach?
Ocean-view NIMBYs will
Ocean-view NIMBYs will probably have an issue with that.
Come again?
So...it's impossible to maintain the park, but we should spend 9 years preparing for the Olympics instead...so we can help the park?
Do you hear how dumb that sounds? If in 9 years we could prepare the entire city for the Olympics just to help the park (by squatting on it for months and wrecking all sorts of parts of it just so that 96 people can play beach volleyball)...then I think we could find the money to fix it up and not 9 years later.
Of course, that's if it's even close to the condition you claim it is...which it isn't.
What's stopping us now?
We could CERTAINLY find the money to fix all this up now.
What's stopping us from doing all the things that we desperately need and have been talking about for a decade now? (rapid bus lines, south coast rail, green line extension, UMass Boston dormitories)
As far as the Common goes, there's nothing stopping us now -- from leveling walkways where roots have buckled the asphalt, turning on some of the water features that haven't run in years, or maybe de-oxidizing some of the statues.
The point of all this is, an international event like this would finally force us, and put us on a timeline, to do things we should have done or could have done a long time ago.
Stopping them, you mean
I'd have the city and/or state spend that money in a heartbeat...if they had it.
Instead it's sitting in corporate bank accounts. The money that would pay for these things is largely corporate. Want them to pay for fixing up the garden in less than a 9 year timeframe? Beg or make them via taxes. But it shouldn't take an international affair to ply that money out (so they can try to sell us on all their cool sponsored products).
I am surprised they did not
I am surprised they did not propose to move the burial ground to make way for a concession stand. In truth the final bid is not in yet.
Don't give up yet
They have to put the sponsor-mandated gargantuan McDonalds someplace.
Nah, no need to move it...
Nah, no need to move it... given how much respect the bid affords the rest of Boston's residents, building on top of an old burial ground seems like it would be par for the course.
After The Olympics leaves town...
After The Olympics leaves town there will be a Museum Project
http://www.lpom.org/exhibits-gallery/
Ooh, this is exciting
"Constructed with $22 million in federal funds, the Olympic Village, once the temporary home for the finest athletes in the world, now houses federal inmates from around the country as Federal Correctional Institution Ray Brook."
And you NIMBY jerks say there can't possibly be any lasting benefits.
Enough of these preliminaries
Let's get to the real question here. For beach volleyball, does the IOC have inflation standards for the balls? And how are those standards enforced?
Where are they going to put
Where are they going to put off the "offensive looking homeless people" ???
They will probably ship them
They will probably ship them off to an island..... oh wait. I mean bus them somewhere out west.
IN 1984 in LA...
they dressed them in tuxedos...I kid you not.
Marathon Route
Good lord why would you not try to use as much of the actual marathon course as possible? Say, run out the river to Newton/Wellesley and then pick up the course coming back. Or make a loop through the city from the stadium, up through downtown, out through Cambridge, out Route 16 and then back in via the Comm Ave? It's the goddamn most well-known marathon course in the world, with the possible exception of the actual route from Marathon to Athens, but they've only been running that annually since the '70s.
Guess what route they used for the 2004 games? (Apparently they got a waiver to have a straighter-than-regulation course. I wonder if Boston could get the same.)
Or, meh, let's just run a loop around somewhere.
The marathon course is point
The marathon course is point-to-point and net downhill, so it comes with a lot of baggage. Such as, for example, not being eligible for world records. I think the Olympic folks want to allow for records.
(Yes, I know you suggested making a loop that would only partially follow the Boston course, but once you stray from the course at all, why bother incorporating any of it?)
Agreed-lame route
While the idea of having runners going along an historic route such as down Comm Ave has at least some appeal, the entire 26.2 mile course looks totally lame! It loops? Is that common for an Olympics(tm) marathon? Ugh. "Wheeee, we ran a circle!" (ellipse?)
An "official" marathon can't be point-to-point
if it wants to be counted for world records. The Boston route isn't official in this sense, and neither is the one in Greece. The course doesn't need to be an exact loop, but it needs to be closer to a U-shape than to a straight line.
Chicago marathon route
How long is the Freedom Trail?
Have them do laps.
Now, I would pay to see the
Now, I would pay to see the Russians, North Koreans, and any other dictatorship have their athletes run the Freedom Trail.
Makes it fair
Looping does two things:
1) makes your net elevation change equal 0. So, runners that excel uphill versus downhill don't have an advantage over the course of the entire race. Net downhill (like the Boston Marathon) also makes the course times faster.
2) makes your net wind direction equal 0 (barring shifting winds throughout the race). You'll run into and out of the wind an equal amount of time. The Boston Marathon is almost always downwind (again, making records faster) since our prevailing winds are from the west.
Put it in City Hall Plaza
I'm serious.
There's no grass to disturb, and it's pretty much the opposite of a beloved public place. We already let the Big Apple Circus fence most of it off for two months every year, and nobody much minds that. Plenty of other events take place there that charge admission, such as Boston Calling and Phantom Gourmet festivals. Speaking of Phantom Gourmet, didn't they once turn the plaza into a sandpit for one of their events?
Ron, this is no place for
Ron, this is no place for constructive suggestions.
Share the profits
I'm all for the Olympics if we Boston residents get to share in the profits. We already pay for the Park/Common - I suggest we lease them to the business people who are bringing this unpleasant event to town. And we use the profits to pay my real estate taxes that year!
Worse With Every New Revelation
Can't we just rush these fucks with pitchforks and get it done with?
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
How about White Stadium?
Is white stadium already slated for use...it's a 10,000 seat stadium that seems like an option and could spur development in that area that needs a reason to pump money into it!
Already spoken for
A 'secure perimeter' would enclose much of Franklin Park for the horsey set and athletes with 19th-century military training.