Hurricane Sandy has brought an incredible amount of devastation to the east coast, and it has also brought controversy over whether the New York Marathon should take place or not. As of November 2nd, Mayor Bloomberg (the mayor of New York) officially called off the race, which was planned to be held today, November 4th. This will mark the first year since 1970 that the race has not been held. Within these years includes 2001, when the marathon was held just two months after the attacks of 9/11. Mayor Bloomberg and Mary Wittenberg, the marathon director, were both supportive of the race taking place and as this article states, they "said the event would provide a needed morale boost, as well as an economic one." Unlike many others, Bloomberg did not believe that holding the race would pull attention away from all those suffering. That said, Bloomberg ended up changing his mind and the race has been cancelled, despite the thousands of people, including many from other countries, who have come in for the marathon. The cancellation was announced just 48 hours before the race, which left many of the 40,000 people who had already flown in quite unhappy. In my opinion, cancelling the race was a no-brainer, but I do think that the decision should have been made earlier. All the focus needs to be on the areas and people who are suffering from all the damage caused by the hurricane. Holding the race would bring controversy and an unnecessary divide to New York, which at a time like this, needs to be united. Maybe a solution would be to postpone the race for a few weeks, but I am aware that doing this would be much easier said than done, considering the amount of people who flew in from all around the globe. What do you think about the race being cancelled? What benefits, if any, would there be if the race was held? Why do you think it took the mayor so long to finally cancel the marathon?
I think it took so long to decide to cancel the marathon because if it was at all possible, it would be beneficial to New York. It would be a chance to get everyone's minds off of Sandy, if only for a little while. This would allow New Yorkers to have a break so that they could gain a new burst of energy to devote to the restoration after the marathon. However, the damage was so bad, that it would be detrimental to devote any resources or time to anything but the restoration of New York. After any other storm, the marathon could be beneficial, but because of the severity of Sandy it is just not a possibility. I think Mayor Bloomberg just wanted to guarantee that it wasn't possible before canceling something that could possibly be beneficial.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Mayor Bloomberg that it was the right thing to do to call off the race to focus on Hurricane Sandy relief effort, but, in fact, what ended up happening was that many of these people, New Yorkers and out-of-towners, still showed up to race and run for charity. I think it was a great effort of what ended up actually happening because, as I read in another article from the New York Times, it was truly New York's very own "underground marathon." Thousands of runners still showed up at the start line to run. People from New York came together to provide supplies necessary to carry through this historical event. For example, local New Yorkers brought there supply of Gatorade, bananas etc for the runners. Because of Hurricane Sandy, we can really see how America comes together as one to help as much as possible.
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