NYC2012 Olympics? What Would New York Have Looked Like If It Had Beaten London In Bid For Games?

It’s no secret New York lobbied pretty hard to host the 2012 Olympic Games, currently taking place in London. Plans were drawn up for new stadiums, and construction even began on several projects designed to draw the International Olympic Committee’s, or IOC'S attention.

But what would a New York-hosted Olympics look like?

The biggest proposed project was the West Side Stadium, planned to host the opening and closing ceremonies, as well as track and field events. The stadium would have been built atop the West Side Yard circa 33rd Street and 11th Avenue in Manhattan, giving the area a much-needed makeover.

Also planned was a volleyball and aquatics center on industrial land near the Willamsburg waterfront in Brooklyn. A pool and beach volleyball court would have stayed behind after the big event. Imagine Willamsburg filled with Olympic athletes and coaches instead of hipsters.

The Olympic Village was to have been located on the Long Island City waterfront in Queens, with 4,400 apartments for athletes and coaches. After the games, the apartments would have been either rented or sold to New Yorkers. Long Island City is currently full of underused land in old industrial sectors.

Despite New York’s impressive bid, the city was eliminated in the second of four rounds of voting by the IOC. The last two rounds were between Paris and London.

However, several of the proposed projects were actually constructed, with New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg arguing that even without the Olympics, the construction projects would greatly benefit the city.

Which projects found funding even without the Olympic Games?

One was Citi Field in Queens, first designed as an Olympic stadium and then devoted to the New York Mets after the bid failed. Another was Atlantic Yards, soon to be the home of the Brooklyn Nets: It was planned to serve as a gymnastics center. The bid also revitalized development of an ice rink in Flushing Meadows in Queens and of the 169th Street Armory in Harlem, as well as an extension of the No. 7 subway line to 11th Avenue.

WNYC, the organization behind New York's public radio stations, put together an extensive interactive map showing different locations that would have been used to host the Olympic Games. Check out its interactive map below.

And who better to pitch the New York Olympic Games than Jerry Seinfeld? NYC 2012 produced a series of ads designed to sway the IOC, with the most notable featuring Seinfeld himself.