New York Road Runners Honor Visionary Of Five-Borough Marathon
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- The godfather of the five-borough marathon is being inducted into the New York Road Runners' Hall of Fame on Thursday. But it might not be who you think it is.
As WCBS 880's Peter Haskell reported, common wisdom has it that the five-borough race was the brainchild of then-New York City Marathon Director Fred Lebow.
Not true.
"The idea behind the whole thing came from a real New York character, a guy named George Spitz," New York Road Runners Chair George Hirsch said.
Hirsch said Spitz had a million crazy ideas.
"He was like a champion of lost causes," said Hirsch, who was involved in the planning of the first five-borough marathon.
The New York City Marathon began in 1970 and consisted of four laps around Central Park.
Lebow initially rejected Spitz's idea of of taking the race to all five boroughs.
"But he just persisted, and he kept banging away at all of us," Hirsch said. "And he finally got the then-(Manhattan) Borough President Percy Sutton behind it."
And when Mayor Abe Beame agreed, they were off and running, with Lebow leading the way.
"Fred knew how to build and promote and make something exciting," Hirsch said.
This year's marathon is Sunday.
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