Saving the 1980 Winter Olympics for America

Most people remember the 1980 Winter Olympics for the “Miracle on Ice,” the epic medal round game during the Men’s Ice Hockey Tournament in Lake Placid when a young American team primarily made up of amateurs outplayed the Soviet Union professionals who had won five Gold Medals in the six previous Winter Olympic Games.

It was memorialized in the 1981 TV documentary, Miracle on Ice, and the 2004 docudrama, Miracle.

Lake Placid Olympic Hockey Rink

However, there is a hitherto untold back story about what it took to actually hold the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid.

There was another epic battle fought on that hockey rink in November and December of 1976. Part of the rink was covered with a thin insulated floor where an improvised “courtroom” was set up and instead of hockey players, the rink was filled with lawyers and expert witnesses.

In 1976, the Adirondack Park Agency was petitioned by the Lake Placid Olympic organizing committee to approve two new 70 and 90 meter ski jump towers at the site of the original ski jump tower that was used during the 1936 Lake Placid Winter Olympics.

Lake Placid Olympic Ski Jump (summer)

Objections were filed by individuals and organizations who believed that the new ski jump towers would negatively impact the “viewscape” and the Adirondack Mountain experience in the region.

1980 Winter Olympic Ski Jump at Lake Placid

At issue in addition to the 70 and 90 m ski jump towers, were the historyscape surrounding abolishionist John Brown’s farmstead, and the world renowned trout sream along New York Route 73 through the Keene Valley which the Olympic Organizing Committee planned to widen by running the trout stream through a culvert.

Arrayed against each other were the Lake Placid Olympic Organizing Committee and its allies and the Adirondack Council.

Lake Placid, the site of the 1936 Winter Olympics, is located within the Adirondack State Park. The Adirondack State Park in northeastern New York State was established in 1885 and was the first state forest preserve in the nation. The inclusion of human communities within the park represents one of the great experiments in conservation anywhere in the industrial world and was designated a National historic landmark in 1963. The park contains 6.1 million acres and includes more than 10,000 lakes, 30,000 miles of rivers and streams in a wide variety of habitats including wetlands and old-growth forests.

The Adirondack Park is managed by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the Adirondack Park Agency and is independent of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. 49% of the Adirondack Park is still privately owned and only 45% is owned by New York State. 6% of the park is water.

The Adirondack Council was founded in 1975 and is the largest citizen environmental group in New York State. Its stated mission is to ensure the ecological integrity and while character of the Adirondack Park. It vigorously opposed the plan to build the 70 and 90 m ski jump towers for the 1980 Winter games on the grounds that the towers would destroy the ambience of the historyscape surrounding the 19th century farmstead of John Brown the famous pre-Civil War abolitionist in the cited of a historically significant meeting with Richard Henry Dana Jr. Who, following his graduation from Harvard Law school in 1837 began to advocate for the rights of sailors and eventually helped found the anti-slavery Free Soil Party in 1848 and began to represent fugitive slaves in Boston as a member of the Boston Vigilance Committee. He also represented William T. G. Morton over his claims of the discovery of the anesthetic properties of ether.

The Adirondack State Park

To meet the timetable imposed by the international Winter Olympic authorities, construction had to begin by April 1977 or the Winter Olympics would be moved to another country. In November 1976, the Adirondack Park Agency set the matter down for an administrative hearing and selected Yannacone as the Law Judge/hearing officer. This was going to be the first controverted hearing conducted under the recently enacted New York State Administrative Procedure Act.

The John Brown Farmstead

John Brown’s Farmhouse

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