That’s “Smells” In a Good Way (I Think)

The Times takes glee in noting that NYC2012 planners kept IOC members on a short leash in Queens:

Since the International Olympic Committee’s evaluation commission arrived in New York on Sunday night, organizers of the city’s Olympic bid have constantly reminded commissioners and their news media entourage that one of the city’s strongest selling points in trying to land the 2012 Games is its ethnic diversity. That Olympic ideal, they insist, could well catapult the melting pot of New York over its four rival cities also bidding for the Games.

But yesterday, when the news media followed in the footsteps of the tour arranged for commission members, the sights and smells of Queens, the city’s most diverse borough, were a bit hard to detect.

The organizers of the city’s Olympic bid claim that the commission was on a tight schedule. The Times acknowledges that they did get to “set foot” on some part of the borough, though not the Times’ conception of what constitutes typical Queens:

The I.O.C. and its news media entourage managed to set foot on a street for a few moments, after they were bused to Long Island City and let off at the Avalon, a luxury high-rise next to the site where the proposed Olympic Village would be built.

The guests were quickly taken up to a $6,500-a-month duplex with sweeping views of the city and the proposed athletes’ village site, on the East River across from Midtown.

Finally, the obligatory “submitting to sumptuous spreads” paragraphs — part reporting, part confessional (including props, well deserved, to the Waterfront Crabhouse!):

Aware that a good press corps travels on its belly, organizers have made sure that all tours and presentations include free food and drink. And indeed, many of the reporters and photographers seem content to be herded into hermetically sealed tours of New York and to submit to sumptuous spreads with the eagerness of a decathlete chugging Gatorade.

Organizers have also presented a smorgasbord of former Olympians from around the world to testify that the Olympics and New York City are a match made on Mount Olympus.

At lunchtime, the news media contingent was ushered into the Waterfront Crab House in Long Island City, where it dined on filet mignon, wine, pecan pie and coffee, and listened to Bill Bradley, the former senator and Knicks star. Revising an ad slogan for New Jersey, he called New York and the Olympics “perfect together.”