June 16, 2022
Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer, Economic and Workforce Development: Thank you, lieutenant governor and let me just echo your sentiments and saying welcome to all of you and welcome world! I first want to thank all of our incredible colleagues in New Jersey for your partnership on this bid and all of you who are here with us today for the World Cup Match Party. I know so many people here have been working so hard for the past four years to get to this moment and now we are just a few short minutes away from finding out who will be selected as a host city. So, who is excited?
[Applause]
Deputy Mayor Torres-Springer: Alright, everyone here is excited. That is fantastic. So of course it’s a different world than when we submitted this bid back in 2018, and every day we continue our healing and our recovery from the last two challenging years. But as a region we have so much to celebrate, and the energy right now on our streets, in our parks, all across the city is really palpable. We are seeing the return of visitors to all five boroughs, at the Statue of Liberty and Central Park, but also the Brooklyn Bridge, Rockaway Beach, Bronx Little Italy, and the rides in Coney Island, and everywhere of course I’m sure across different neighborhoods and towns in New Jersey.
Deputy Mayor Torres-Springer: And there’s a lot that’s promising. For example, over Memorial Day week, our hotels rooms were full, hitting 95% of our pre-pandemic levels. We saw the highest… You can clap for that, thank you all, that is great news… We also saw the highest Broadway attendance at 35 shows since our theaters opened last summer. We’re seeing our MTA subway and New Jersey Transit system starting to return to pre-pandemic levels so all of that is fantastic. And I know that we in the Eric Adams administration are so committed to kickstarting our economic engines: tourism, hospitality, arts and culture. Because they are foundational to what makes New York New York, and they make New York City and New Jersey the best place to host the FIFA World Cup.
Deputy Mayor Torres-Springer: So thank you, I really cannot imagine a better place to welcome the world because New York City and New Jersey are back and we’re ready to show that to the world. So I hope all of you enjoy the festivities this afternoon at this incredible event and let’s all cross our fingers that we hear New York/New Jersey tonight. Thank you, let’s do this!
[…]
Mayor Eric Adams: Listen, I need you guys up here with me. Come on up here, come on up here. I need you, and be careful, we gotta walk, take the step. I need this energy! Look at this energy!
Mayor Adams: Let me tell you, this is what it’s all about. This is what it’s all about, and all of us who have been weighed down by COVID, all of us who have experienced uncertainty, all of us that wondered about what the future would be like, the question mark lingered over our city and country for two years. Today, these young people and their enthusiasm, they took the question mark and they turned it into an exclamation point. We are America. We are New York. We are New Jersey.
Mayor Adams: You’re darn right we gonna be alright, the World Cup is coming here to New York and New Jersey. We are so excited, we are energized. Soccer has a way of bridging us all together. In this region, there’s nowhere else on the globe where diversity reigns. 200 different languages are spoken in New York and New Jersey, the most diversified. Those feet stomping and saying we are stomping towards the future, marching to where we’re going. Congratulations New York/New Jersey, let’s win this thing together!
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