On Sunday, November 1st, the New York marathon will change a small part of its route to, trivially, make it easier to do shopping and go to the laundry room in Mott Haven, the Bronx. It is the first modification to the track since 2011 and concerns the trait between the twentieth and twenty-first mile, approximately between kilometer 32 and 34. The runners will face five turns instead of the previous seven, avoiding the round around one block that during the race became difficult to reach.
On that block, on East 140th Street, there is a Western Beef supermarket and a 24-hour laundry room – we were not joking. The old route went up Morris Avenue, turning on 140th Street along the supermarket parking lot and going back through Rider Avenue. For most of the day the activities were so cut off from the car accesses, while those arriving on foot had to deal with the passage of marathons.
The problem was mainly the inhabitants of the Patterson Houses, a complex of public housing with almost 1,800 apartments, on the opposite side of Morris Avenue. Jennifer Alicea, who has been living in the neighborhood for ten years, explained to the New York Times that that supermarket and laundry are the services she relies on. On the day of the race, he said, “everyone knows that you have to stay away”.
Even those coming from other areas of the Bronx must organize differently. Dante Williams, resident in Fordham, told the newspaper to choose that laundry because he has a parking lot. During the marathon, however, it must leave the car in another block and wait for an interruption in the flow of runners to cross with two large bags of clothes.
With the new track, after entering the Bronx from Willis Avenue Bridge, participants will continue on Alexander Avenue to East 141st Street, instead of turning already on 138th. From there they will pass on Third Avenue and reach East 138th Street, continuing to Madison Avenue Bridge to return to Manhattan. The deviation around the supermarket and laundry will be eliminated. The total distance of the race will remain of 42,195 kilometers.
Ted Metellus, director of the marathon and responsible for the production of events of New York Road Runners, the organization that manages the race, explained that restoring access to the activities was the main reason for the intervention. According to Metellus, who grew up in the Bronx, the area became more residential and this increased the inconvenience caused by closures. The fact that it is running on Sunday further complicates things: it is the day when many residents have time for spending and laundry.
The change was studied on the occasion of the recertification of the planned course this year. The organizers discussed the alternatives with the local community and presented two hypotheses to the city administration and the police, which had to approve the change. Metellus said he wanted to introduce him already in the 50th anniversary edition of the route through the five districts.
The marathon, in fact, exists since 1970, but until 1975 it ran entirely in Central Park, repeating several times a circuit. Only in 1976 began crossing Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan and Bronx. At the first edition, 127 runners had joined and just 55 had finished the race; in 2025 they arrived at the finish line in 59,226.
The passage into the Bronx was discussed fifty years ago. According to Metellus’s story, in 1976 it entered and came out of the same two bridges used today, but the stretch in the district was just over a turn around a lamp. After that first edition, the president of the Bronx asked the organizers to extend it, so that the marathon would travel a wider part of the territory.
L’articolo New York marathon changes road proviene da IlNewyorkese.
