The Olympics Are Gone, But We Still Love Chicago

Statue of Liberty at Chicago's Olympic bid non-party in Daley Plaza

The 2016 Olympic bidding is done. The countdown today killed many Chicagoans’ dreams. Others cheered in delight.

Many secretly hope that this is what finally breaks Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley’s machine after selling our city’s soul to the parking meter moguls to help fund the Olympic coffers; his legacy is tarnished without this crowning point.

Daley Plaza's creamsicle fountain.

After the announcement, it was silent at Daley Plaza. As the expression goes, you could hear a pin drop.  The fountain, flowing orange-dyed water looked a creamsicle about to melt. The orange “I was here” flags went flat. Most people were shocked. The “how-did-we-not-even-get-to-the-final-round” comment lingered, unspoken in the air.

Everyone I talked to at Daley Plaza today had an opinion on why Chicago didn’t get the 2016 Olympic bid and Rio did.

A few floating around: too much star power making the United States look like the overbearing, pushy big-brother that many countries have grown to resent. Giving the International Olympic Committee a tour of Chicago during a snowy day last April, too much crime, not enough public transportation, or the seemingly underhanded mafia-style ”I’ll scratch your back and give you a cut of the dealings,” that were in front of the public viewing. 

Ziff Sistrunk of Kirby Puckett Boys Club post-Olympic bid announcement.

I found Ziff Sistrunk, who runs the Kirby Puckett Boys Club baseball team, holding a 2016 Chicago Olympic bid sign standing above the crowd from a pulpit-like perch at Daley Plaza.

“This is the first step of 1,000 steps,” said Sistrunk, who lives in Washington Park. “Let’s keep the enthusiasm about Chicago going.”

Gigi Lubin of Lincoln Park at Daley Plaza

Gigi Lubin of Lincoln Park joked that when she walked up, just minutes after the no-go Chicago announcement, she found an orange-Olympic T-shirt in the trash. She picked it out, asking a random male stranger if it was his to which he told her, “One person’s trash is another person’s treasure.”

Bitter? Yes. Salty? For sure. But Lubin, whose grandfather, Adolph Lubin,  de-constructed the World’s Fair Century of Progress International Exposition after it ended in 1934, didn’t care that Chicago had been tossed aside.

“I love this city,” she said.  ”I have so many friends who come to visit for the first time and comment about how they have no idea that Chicago was so beautiful.”

“Of course,” she adds. “They also come here when it’s warm after the Air & Water show, so they have no idea what it’s like when it’s 20-degrees outside…I don’t think we’d ever get the winter Olympics because of that, unless they let people ski down the John Hancock (Center).”

It’s true. Most people are surprised by our lake, which has amazing sunsets and sunrises over sailboat-filled harbors. 

If you’ve traveled a lot across the United States one thing strikes you more than most: Chicago actually feels like a city, with a enormous amount of skyscrapers, instead of a few-Lego-looking towers that dot three-story downtowns. It is clean. We are generally pleasant people here with that wholesome “Midwestern” mind-set and we offer a lot to everyone local and not from world-class museums and universities (University of Chicago has the most Noble Peace -prize winners at 27.) We host the world’s largest triathlon, 9,300 this August. Have great sports teams, even though all of us Cubs fans say maybe next year for decades. We have great food, even if it isn’t the healthiest stuff at deep-dish pizza and hot dogs and beer (Goose Island, among others). Oh yeah, and we have Oprah, the president of the United States and Michael Jordan.

I had to go away to appreciate Chicago. Most people do. After driving to every NFL city in the country for four months (for The Sporting News’ Ultimate NFL Road  Trip), living through hurricanes in Florida and big hair/fur-coat clad grocery store-shopping women in Dallas, I appreciate this city that much more.

So here’s to you Chicago. Without or without the Olympics, we still love ya!

(If you need more  reasons click here for my other post earlier today about weird, quirky Chicago facts.)