The 1980 Olympics, hosted in Lake Placid, New York, produced a series of iconic moments including the “Miracle on Ice,” as the U.S. men’s hockey team defeated the heavily favored Russian squad. We generally look back on these olympic games quite fondly, though the brief period in which Lake Placid was a bustling olympic village was surrounded by periods of great controversy. 

One of the perks of building in Lake Placid in the first place was that they already boasted significant athletic facilities, and as such the Olympics would be cheaper to fund. In approving the budget for the games, Congress instituted a secondary mission to build structures that would not be abandoned soon after the games concluded, which proved more difficult. It was a struggle to build something practical in a town that originally consisted of 3,000 people. This period in time happened to align with a significant increase in incarcerations in the U.S., which the government addressed by building more prisons. Logically, the best proposed plan was to convert the Olympic Village into a prison. 

The housing for the athletes very much embodied that mission. Rooms resembled cells, shaped as small rectangles with solid concrete walls, bunk beds, even sporting a single, tiny window with a steel bar running down the middle. The building was surrounded by electric fences. The resemblance was uncanny, and was certainly controversial amongst the participating countries, and logically this was met with significant backlash. An activist group formed under the acronym STOP (Stop the Olympic Prison), filing a lawsuit that threatened to stop construction on the village. But since the Olympics were a massive operation, construction went on, and to this day what used to be the Olympic village is a prison that houses about 1,000 inmates.

It’s unbelievable how much this information seems to be swept under the rug. Sources on the subject are few and far between, with the dominant narrative being how charming the town of Lake Placid is today. To be fair, Lake Placid does seem to be thriving, maintaining the legacy born from the 1980 Olympics and now being a popular destination for tourists and winter athletes alike. The Olympics undoubtedly created economic opportunities in Lake Placid despite the amount of year-round residents hardly changing since the games. Ironically, the construction of the prison created plenty of local jobs as well. The effects of the Olympics have been overwhelmingly positive, and the controversy that existed seems to have been forgotten with time.

It was certainly surprising to uncover this story in my research, given the identity Lake Placid has as a remnant of an iconic olympics. Perhaps it is because the prison is a few miles from the town square itself, or maybe the media was successful in suppressing the prison narrative. Nevertheless, the story of the Lake Placid Olympics is a really unique, interesting footnote in the history of the Adirondacks.

Works Cited:

Nofil, Brianna. “The Forgotten Tale of How America Converted Its 1980 Olympic Village into a Prison.” Atlas Obscura, Atlas Obscura, 4 Nov. 2016, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-time-that-the-us-turned-an-olympic-village-into-a-prison . 

Rielly, Kimberly. “The Olympics’ Impact on Lake Placid -.” The Adirondack Almanack, 25 Feb. 2014, https://www.adirondackalmanack.com/2014/01/moon-boots-miracles-olympics-impact-lake-placid.html . 

Sue Cameron. “The Olympic ‘Prison’ Story.” Lake Placid, Adirondacks, 22 Apr. 2019, https://www.lakeplacid.com/story/2016/02/olympic-prison-story .