NOTE ON THE NEWS - PERCY SUTTON DEAD AT 89
Race Results Weekly
December 28, 2009
Percy Sutton, the longest-serving Manhattan Borough President in New
York City history and one of New York's most influential black
politicians, died over the weekend at a nursing home. He was 89
years-old.
Sutton was actually an important figure in the history of marathon
running. Sutton, with real estate developers Jack and Lew Rudin and
New York Road Runners' president Fred Lebow, took the New York City
Marathon out of Central Park and into all five boroughs of New York
City in 1976. At the time, people thought this was crazy (there were
stories about how people would surely be mugged if they ran through the
city's streets). But Sutton's belief in Lebow and the sport gave rise
to the modern big-city marathon which has been duplicated in hundred of
cities around the world. The New York Road Runners honored Sutton
creating the Percy E. Sutton Harlem 5-K last August in his honor (the
2010 event will take place on 21 August).
You can read the New York Times obituary on Sutton here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/
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