The weather was gray and dreary, with spells of rain followed by the squish of mud underfoot. In other words, a party planner’s nightmare, but at least it jibed with the crowd’s damp expectations.

Nobody really thought New York was going to be awarded the 2012 Olympics, not with the odds pointing to Paris and London and New York’s last-minute stadium kerfuffle. And yet the unflaggingly optimistic NYC2012 bid committee put on a brave face and invited all of us unfortunate enough not to be over in Singapore with the likes of Australian swimmer Ian Thorpe and pop icon Posh Spice to Decision Central, a countdown party cum extreme camping experiment at Rockefeller Center. A massive screen – they call it the Jumbotron – showing live coverage of the International Olympic Committee’s proceedings took up the bulk of the stage, while local athletes gave presentations on fencing and gymnastics (no water polo, alas) on the mushy lawn.

The event’s organizers claimed 1,000 people attended, but that would be a generous estimate if you discounted the members of the media and the 2012 committee. The crowd was a mix of diehard Olympics lovers, pin collectors, confused tourists, and a handful of kids from Massachusetts who’d been at the Live 8 concert in Philadelphia and weren’t ready to head home just yet.

“I think it would be so exciting if we got the Olympics,” a woman who recently moved here from Kansas to work as a nanny, Kate Corcoran, told me before any of the announcements. “If we get it, hopefully I’ll own an apartment by then and I can rent it out.”

Despite the surfeit of festive touches – rock bands, a topiary Lady Liberty mascot as the lawn’s centerpiece, NYC2012 flags for one and all! – the rain was what set the tone. When it first came down early Tuesday evening, event planners scrambled to cover the equipment on the stage with horrible looking dark garbage bags. Around 3 a.m., during Moscow’s presentation, well after the tourists and night workers taking cigarette breaks had vanished to places more comfortable, the few souls who were crazy enough to remain on hand ran for cover underneath one of the Art Deco arches of the GE building. When the sun rose yesterday, a mere 20 or so survivors were on the bleachers, with mud splattered on their ankles and shirtsleeves. It was all pretty punk rock.

The early-morning announcement that New York was eliminated in the second round didn’t send anybody barreling over. No sobbing, no screaming, no bawling, no brawling. Everything just stopped. Mouths fell open, eyes bulged, and everybody’s suspicions that nothing is fair were confirmed. Two seconds later, when the sting abated, the world began to spin again.

What surprised people, it turned out, wasn’t that New York had lost, but that it had done so in the second round instead of the third. People ambled about, filling space with opinions about our chances for the 2016 Games or how we should have come in at least third. Nobody was in the mood simply to admit defeat.

Soon, committee members meandered across the muddy lawn and exchanged words with one another about having nothing to be ashamed of. A leader of NYC2012 instructed a band to go onstage and play a couple of songs. “We don’t want this to be a gloom-and-doom fest,” he told the singer.

The crowd beefed up by 7:43 a.m., in time for the final announcement. Perhaps because they were happy about having something new to chew on, they paid full attention to the live feed. Nobody could avert their eyes from the screen, and when the word “London” rolled off Jacques Rogge’s tongue, fists pumped the air and voices cheered. It was almost as if “New York” had been announced.

There was a sense that if New York wasn’t going to get the Games, neither should France, the country that dared to be the front-runner, the country whose president made haughty remarks about English food. (I never took us to be so protective of fish pies and baked beans, but we are.)

Bands hopped up to the stage and tried to keep it cheerful. “We’re down but we’re not out!” a peroxide-headed singer chanted. “Can I have applause for New York City and 2012?”

The city’s commissioner of parks and recreation, Adrian Benepe, got up and said: “I’m sad but I’m proud. Who’s proud of this city?”

The cheering was starting to thin out. Enough was enough. It was time to find a dry place to sleep.