NEW YORK IS COUNTING A $3.3 BILLION WORLD CUP WINDFALL AND THE CORNER SPOTS THAT FED THE CROWDS ARE STILL WAITING ON THEIR SLICE

From East Harlem to Elmhurst, New York just fed the world for a month. Spain beat Argentina in the final on July 19 out at MetLife, more than a million visitors moved through the region, and the city that hosted them keeps quoting a single number to describe what it was worth. 3.3 billion dollars. The regional host committee announced the figure by ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange. It is a big, clean, quotable number. It is also, according to the economists who study exactly this kind of number, very much overstated. Both can be true, and underneath both sits a question the spots that actually cooked for the crowds keep asking. Where is our slice.