The New York City Marathon, which has run every year since 1970, including in 2001, two months after Sept 11 has been cancelled, in wake of the havoc and distress caused by Superstorm Sandy. Public displeasure over the fact that critical resources could be diverted to the marathon when thousands of residents were struggling was evident.
Mayor Bloomberg and NYC faced one of their hardest challenges earlier this week when Superstorm Sandy unleashed her power on the City. The Mayor wanted to get NYC running again as soon as possible. He felt that by organizing the NYC Marathon per schedule, he could highlight his City’s resilience and his efforts as a Mayor in a time of crisis. But too many people were hurting and the City was not ready. And she spoke. The NY Times said,
For days, the mayor, who is often reluctant to abandon a position of his, insisted on going ahead with the race, saying it would signal that the city was back to normal.
He changed his mind as opposition became nearly unanimous.
A Change.org petition to postpone the marathon was signed by 28,734 people at the time of writing.
The petition read:
Mayor Bloomberg and NYRR’s (New York Road Runners) Director Mary Wittenberg postponed the event late Friday and Wittenberg said,
“This isn’t the year or the time to run it,” she said.
The crowd agreed.
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