In London, Games’ legacy came first

[barryqwalsh]

A housing development is rising at London’s Olympic park

LONDON — Construction cranes looming over Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park begin their slow-motion ballet by breakfast, accompanied by the distant purr of earth-moving machines roaming around the Olympic stadium. Metallic hammering clangs from the modern housing towers rising beside the aquatic center. A lone worker in a hard hat jackhammers through a swath of asphalt near the former athletes’ village.

Nearly three years after London’s Olympic cauldron was extinguished, crews across the Olympic park are erecting apartments, office space, tech centers, and media studios. The stadium where Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt cemented his title as “World’s Fastest Man” in 2012 is undergoing a massive refitting. New museums are on the drawing board; maybe the first Smithsonian on this side of the pond. Hotels and public schools are on the build list.

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In London Games legacy came first - Metro - The Boston Globe