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New York City Marathon to be run with tight security©New York Times
© St. Petersburg Times, NEW YORK -- Sunday's New York City Marathon will be the most heavily secured in the race's history, with thousands of police officers deployed through the five boroughs, the rivers and skies guarded and 30,000 prescreened runners permitted to carry just one transparent plastic bag each, officials said on Friday. And forget about driving. For the first time in the marathon's 32-year history, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, the starting point of the race, will be closed to traffic in both directions, as will other crossings along the route's meandering 26.2 miles. Unlike last year, cars will be prohibited on the Staten Island Ferry during the race. Before racers log Mile 1 -- the midpoint of the Staten Island-to-Brooklyn span, which offers a jarring view of where the World Trade Center used to be -- they will have had their identities checked, their bodies scanned and their 2-million fans corralled. And the runners will have been warned not to eat the orange slices or drink the cups of water that are traditionally bestowed on them by spectators along the way. Still, they will consider themselves fortunate. The suicide attacks in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania had put the marathon in doubt. "In the days following the Sept. 11 attacks, the status of the race was uncertain," said Richard M. Finn, a spokesman for the marathon and the New York Road Runners, which organized it. Now, he said, the race is symbolic of a people moving forward, one step at a time. On the waters, teams of armed Coast Guard officers will patrol in cutters, along with harbor launches from the Police Department. On the roads, police officers and firefighters will be running in the race, and all of the metal trash cans along the route will be removed, the police official said. Police on rooftops will be on the lookout for anything suspicious.
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From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
