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. Despite this, the impact of the 1980 Olympics has been overall positive and is a large component of culture in Lake Placid to this day.
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. As such, some nations refused to house their athletes there, as it was a far worse residence than the villages of past games. Reception to the Olympic village was overwhelmingly negative, as people generally did not like the idea of a new prison in the area. 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.
Despite this controversy, we don’t see this side of the story dominating the narrative around the town today. The town of Lake Placid itself is thriving, becoming a popular destination for tourists and winter athletes alike. Even prisons themselves are necessary and as bizarre as it was to have the Olympic village in that form, the prison succeeded in bringing purpose to a structure that would otherwise be abandoned, and brought jobs to the area. The Olympics inarguably brought economic prosperity to the area despite the number of year-round residents hardly changing since the games. It is difficult to argue that Lake Placid would be better off today without the Olympics, not to mention the joy and memories the games brought to the rest of the world
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 .
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. Despite this, the impact of the 1980 olympics has been overall positive and is a large component of culture in Lake Placid to this day.
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. As such, some nations refused to house their athletes there, as it was a far worse residence than the villages of past games. Reception to the olympic village was overwhelmingly negative, as people generally did not like the idea of a new prison in the area. 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.
Despite this controversy, we don’t see this side of the story dominating the narrative around the town today. The town of Lake Placid itself is thriving, becoming a popular destination for tourists and winter athletes alike. Even prisons themselves are necessary, and as bizarre as it was to have the olympic village in that form, the prison succeeded in bringing purpose to a structure that would otherwise be abandoned, and brought jobs to the area. The Olympics inarguably brought economic prosperity to the area despite the amount of year-round residents hardly changing since the games. It is difficult to argue that Lake Placid would be better off today without the olympics, not to mention the joy and memories the games brought to the rest of the world
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 .