City and race officials have decided to cancel the New York City Marathon after all. Mayor Michael Bloomberg had suggested earlier today that the race would go on as planned, but apparently the growing outrage over that decision proved too much.
The New York Times with more:
Such a move would be historic — the marathon has been held every year since 1970, including the race in 2001 held two months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks — but seemed inevitable as opposition to the marathon swelled. Critics said that it was in poor taste to hold a foot race through the five boroughs while so many people in the area are still suffering from the storm’s damages, and that city services should focus on storm relief, not the marathon. Proponents of the marathon — notably Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Mary Wittenberg, director of the marathon — said the race would provide a needed morale boost, as well as an economic one.
Only hours before the decison, Bloomberg had defended pressing on with the event. “You have to keep going and doing things. … You can grieve and you can cry and you can laugh and that’s what human beings are good at,” he said at a news conference. “New York has to show that we are here and we are going to recover.”
