Fred Lebow, the running pioneer and his New York City Marathon – from Central Parc through the five boroughs of New York – Horst Milde says thank you, a special tribute!

On Sunday, November 7, 2021, the New York City Marathon celebrated its 50th anniversary. It is the largest and also the most spectacular marathon in the world. German Road Races reported in detail about this event.

The New York City Marathon – and thus its organizers – are ultimately responsible for triggering the worldwide boom in running that began in the mid-1980s and has happily continued to this day. For me in Berlin, the New York City Marathon has always been very motivating and inspiring – and thus a role model worthy of being copied.

The TCS New York City Marathon sent out a lot of press releases and information in the run-up to its 2021 race. It was teeming with activities, programs and side events for the 50th anniversary race, but it struck me that there was almost nothing about the race’s initiator and co-founder Fred Lebow. Maybe I missed something, but instead I read in a New York newspaper by Hailey Eber, who writes in the New York Post of November 6, 2021: „The first New York City Marathon was nothing like Sunday’s big race, but they have one important thing in common: Fred Lebow“.

If the organizer does not have much to say about Lebow on this extraordinary date, then it is time for those who are deeply indebted to Fred Lebow and his activities to have their say, because they followed his example and organize their own races and marathons, wherever in the world.

Which I hereby do – Thank you Fred!

This running pioneer Fred Lebow was the one who recognized or sensed that running could have a future. Undaunted he went his way – and we all did it sooner or later. We should all be grateful for that, the big and the small organizers, who often forget where it all started – and that there were visionaries like Fred Lebow, who turned ideas into actions.

Fred Lebow – Foto: Victah Sailer

„Lebow, a Romanian-born Holocaust survivor who worked in Manhattan’s garment district, helped organize the first New York City Marathon in 1970. It was a relatively modest event: 126 men and one woman lined up at the starting line and then ran several laps around Central Park.“

It started similarly modestly in 1974 in Berlin’s Grunewald Forest: that’s when 286 participants entered the 1st Berlin People’s Marathon (later BERLIN MARATHON) and 244 saw themselves at the finish line.

„By today’s standards, the New York race seemed rather disorganized, with bicycles and pedestrians weaving between runners,“ writes George A. Hirsch in the introduction to „New York City Marathon: 50 Years Running“ (Skyhorse Publishing) by Richard O’Brien, now out. The book paints a comprehensive portrait of Lebow and his groundbreaking road race.“

„The New York City Marathon as we know it didn’t really take off until 1976. At that time, an official and local runner named George Spitz suggested expanding the race to all five boroughs. Lebow thought that was „too ambitious“.

„A race like that could cost $15,000, and where are we going to get that kind of money?“ recalls Hirsch of Lebow’s question. But Spitz persisted and got then-Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton on board. Sutton found a local businessman who raised $25,000 for the event, and things took off. The NYC Marathon was launched in 1970, but didn’t expand to the five boroughs until 1976.“
In Berlin it was similar, in 1974 the race was launched in Charlottenburg on Eichkampstrasse, the course was mainly first in Grunewald (forest) – parallel to the Autobahn (AVUS) – in 1981 they followed New York’s example and moved the race to downtown Berlin (West) with the start at the Reichstag and the finish on Kurfürstendamm, near the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church on Tauentzien.

„In 1976, that was the starting point,“ writes Hirsch, the 87-year-old former publisher of magazines such as The Runner and Runner’s World. About 2,000 people started the race and 1,549 finished. That meant the race surpassed the number of participants in the Boston Marathon and was the largest marathon in the world. „We all knew we had an instant success – one that would become an annual institution and the best day in the life of New York City,“ Hirsch writes. And „everyone agreed that Lebow had done a great job.“

„Fred, This One’s For You“ A Special Tribute  – Runners World

„Lebow became the moving force behind the day, overseeing every aspect of the race, big and small, year after year. He handed out T-shirts in the streets and was always easily recognizable with his beard and sneakers. Fred Lebow was obsessed with running and organizing the marathon for more than two decades, but he was only able to participate in it himself once.“

Fred Lebow distributed T-shirts not only in New York City, but also abroad. I met him in Stockholm when I was trying to convince the Berlin police director Heinz Ernst at the 1981 Stockholm Marathon to organize a marathon in the city center in Berlin as well. I introduced myself artfully to Fred Lebow and he offered me, as if in a „sacred act“, the mentioned current New York Marathon T-shirt.

Indeed, I was proud to be given a t-shirt by the great „MASTER“ of the New York City Marathon! His advice he gave me while handing over the NYC T-shirt, „Don’t get confused, don’t give up trying to convince the authorities and whoever in Berlin to bring running to the inner city for the people“!

His advice ended up guiding my intense efforts to convince the police that runners also have the right to use Berlin’s streets.

„A 1979 article in The Runner magazine described how Lebow barely slept or ate for several days leading up to the event, fretting over every line and curve on the course. In another article, Lebow described how he was coping with the „aftermath“ of the 1978 marathon. He had been successful, but fretted over little things that didn’t go quite as planned, telling the magazine „my personal disorganization was inexcusable.“ He even wondered if he should stop.

His obsession led to never being able to participate in a marathon himself. „I wanted to run it so well that I couldn’t afford to run it, too,“ Lebow once said. „To be able to participate in the New York City Marathon – that’s my biggest dream“.

„Lebow was born Fischel Lebowitz to a large Orthodox family and grew up in Arad, Romania, during the Nazi occupation. He survived and escaped after the war as a teenager, working as a sugar and diamond trader from mainland Europe to England and Iceland. Eventually he emigrated to the United States and managed a nightclub in Cleveland. He then moved to New York and began working in the garment industry. One day a friend challenged him to a 1.6-mile trot around Central Park Reservoir, and he quickly took a liking to the sport. He then joined the New York Road Runners, an organization he eventually led for two decades.“

„He took his own miles as seriously as he did monitoring the marathon. „Running is the oasis in life, the one area where you don’t cheat or exaggerate, unlike in business or relationships with women or friends,“ the lifelong bachelor told Hirsch. „I will never write in my logbook that I ran a mile more than I actually ran.“ But for all he did for the city’s running community, Lebow wasn’t perfect. For years, he fought against the establishment of a wheelchair division, and in the early days, he resisted fully accepting female runners.“

„In 1992, Lebow ran a marathon for the first and only time. He was 60 years old at the time and was undergoing follow-up treatment for a brain tumor. Grete Waitz, his good friend and nine-time record marathon winner – Lebow called her „the queen of the road“ – ran the entire distance alongside him. Just before their race together, Waitz recalled seeing him a few years earlier and thinking he had only a few months to live. „I didn’t think we’d be running a marathon two years later,“ she told The New York Times.

„He told me how he ran in the hospital, „To do a mile, I had to run 67 times around the roof. I ran 67 laps.“ The two finished the race in just over five and a half hours. „Fred’s journey that day remains one of the emotional highlights of the race’s first half century,“ O’Brien writes.

Fred Lebow and Grete Waitz at the finish line of the New York City Marathon in 1992 – Photo by Victah Sailer.

„He and Grete were cheered on at every turn by crowds of New Yorkers who recognized and clearly appreciated this cause for which he had done so much. This great annual celebration of urban life and spirit.“

New Yorkers erected a life-size memorial to Fred Lebow in 1994 that the usually stands at the corner of 90th Street and East Drive. But on the days leading up to the marathon, the statue is always moved to a spot near the finish line. All runners then pass it on their way to the finish line.

Fred Lebow, where it all began as a monument and Grete Waitz in Central Parc – Photo: Victah Sailer

With his New York City Marathon, Fred Lebow gave his city a sporting flagship that is admired worldwide.

The running community remembers him with great appreciation.

Horst Milde
(former race director and founder of the Berlin Marathon)