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NY City Marathon: The City That Runs Together, Sticks Together!

Photos: Lavina Melwani & Paula Negro

It’s the New York City Marathon, where 50,000 people take to the streets and the rest of the population cheers them on. The city seems to run by right outside my apartment on First Avenue, so even though I’m not a runner – a mere walker – I have a tremendous sense of ownership simply because it’s happening right outside my door. As usual, I flung my camera around my neck and walked with a friend alongside the runners, cheering them on Thousands line the streets, there are marching bands, there are family members, and there are volunteers giving out food and drink to the runners.

I usually start out late, so I never get to see the best runners who are probably in the beginning of the marathon, but I catch the mass of humanity, the everyday New Yorkers who all have the same dream to run and complete the marathon. So, you’ll see younger runners, you’ll see middle-aged runners and even some  older athletes, and you root for all of them. It’s a very optimistic start to the day because you see people and their aspirations and how they are making their aspirations come true. They run and along with them, we see the school bands playing, the friends and family rooting for them.

It’s really all about community.

I’m always more roused by the audience that turns out to be there for the marathoners; there are whole families with three generations, grandmothers with grandchildren and of course, many many dogs because the Upper East Side is all about the doggy family. So, you see even the dogs seem to be rooting for the runners, watching intently, wagging their tails. It was particularly touching passing the area where The Sloan Kettering Cancer Center is located – there were so many staff members who were rooting for their colleagues who were running. Some child patients, who had been brought out from the pediatric ward in wheelchairs with the oxygen and other components attached, were enjoying the morning sunlight and watching the marathon.

New Yorkers never seem to lose their sense of humor. A popular placard was ‘The Rats Don’t Run the City – You Do!’ Another said, ‘Should I call you an Uber now?’

All in all, even though winter is approaching, it was a very happy, fuzzy  kind of a day when you just see the whole of New York churning around –  people with giant pizza boxes, people balancing babies and placards, people in wheelchairs – all brought together by a common event. People all having a good time encouraging and applauding friends and strangers. Many of the runners had their names printed on their shirts and so the bystanders were yelling out the names and clapping for them even though they were complete strangers and not known to them at all.

I felt I had already done a marathon myself because I was walking for several blocks along with the runners and then my friend and I decided to try out another marathon tradition, which is to sit in a pub or a wine bar and have a glass of wine or a cold beer to cheer the marathoners!  So we opted for a tall glass of chilled cider and it was fun to see the marathon roll by from the comfort of our vantage seats.

And so as the marathoners surged  on their long trek to the Bronx and then would turn around and finally end in Central Park, we mini marathoners of the mind decided to call it a day and then get on with our own day, spiked by the cider and by the energy of the runners. It was a good Sunday!