thedrifter
12-05-08, 07:44 AM
Century-old indoor track still enchants runners
By George Vecsey
Friday, December 5, 2008
NEW YORK: When aging runners hear about the old 168th Street Armory, they talk about splinters the size of ice picks embedded in their shins, the red badge of courage of indoor track and field.
Dr. Norbert Sander, who has helped turn the armory in Manhattan into something of an international mecca, remembers his initiation to a banked wooden track, 11 laps to the mile.
In the early '60s, he was a slender runner at Fordham University in New York who had wheedled a handicap in the outside lane. In his desperation to hold off the better runners on the very first turn, Sander went stumbling into the furniture and the spectators.
"Besides the splinters, I had floor burn," Sander recalled Thursday at the gussied-up armory in Washington Heights. "I was as red as a beet. My skin looked like it had gone through a meat grinder."
This was the occupational hazard of the old rutted wooden track, mercifully replaced by a smooth artificial surface. The old fortress at West 168th Street and Fort Washington Avenue in New York has become the Armory Track and Field Center, home to runners from the inner city, suburbs, far-off blue states and red states, and even contingents of track-mad French athletes who make a pilgrimage every year.
The armory, beginning the 100th year since the laying of its cornerstone in December 1909, is a wonderful place, filled almost every day from November through March with hundreds of runners, bustling with the hopefulness and energy of youth.
The armory was built to house the 22nd Regiment of the National Guard, but soon it was holding major indoor meets, starting with the Xavier Games on Jan. 10, 1914. Sturdy enough to house tanks for training, it was closed to track from 1939 until January 1945. Then as the city deteriorated in the 1970s, the armory was used to shelter homeless men, and in 1985 it was closed to sports.
"Every window was broken," Sander has said. "All the plumbing was broken. We found hermits living in the corners."
With Sander and others pushing the city, the armory was saved for track, via a compromise. There is a renewed shelter on 168th Street (the inhabitants sometimes get free tickets to meets and are part of the community). The track was reopened in 1993 and renovated with a modern surface, handsome steel beams and light streaming from high windows.
"It looks like some old-fashioned French railroad station," said Peter Walsh, the co-owner of Coogan's, a restaurant on Broadway that has become a haven for track and field buffs. Walsh says the wholesome presence of hundreds of youngsters warming up on the streets around the armory has been the single most vital cause of the upgrading of the neighborhood.
The renaissance has happened under the leadership of Sander, an internist on City Island, as well as the only New York native to win the New York City Marathon, in 1974. Sander has cajoled an annual budget of $2.5 million with support from New Balance and other corporations (including Citigroup) and has urged New York area colleges to hang their banners and recruit regional athletes to stay home.
As part of the cornerstone anniversary, the armory is releasing a countdown of its 100 top moments. The favorite for No. 1 is the first four-minute indoor mile ever run by a high-school athlete, Alan Webb, in 3 minutes, 59.86 seconds, on Jan. 20, 2001.
This event is recognized in the attractive National Track Hall of Fame, relocated from Indianapolis, residing just inside the front door of the armory. The Hall of Fame has films and displays, including a section on Marion Jones, who after her career went to prison for lying under oath about her use of illegal steroids. She had to return her five Olympic medals. The display, incorporating Jones's admission of guilt, remains as a warning to young and old.
The armory has a major fan in Doug Logan, the chief executive of USA Track & Field, the national governing body for track and field.
On his first trip to the armory as a student at LaSalle Military Academy in Oakdale, New York, Logan observed the urban mix of competitors.
At the armory, he would do odd tasks for his speedier teammates, which gave him time to observe George Eastment, the track coach at Manhattan College, "teaching a group of runners how to run a curve." He also remembers "a floating dice game on a blanket on the back stairs - where I learned to play craps."
Logan later got to watch his friend at Manhattan College, Tyrone Pannell, a superb hurdler and high jumper. After graduation, Pannell joined the Marines and Logan joined the Army and both went to Vietnam, but only Logan came back alive.
"Tyrone never fell," Logan said, recalling the days of the wooden track. "The ham-and-eggers fell, but not Tyrone."
Most runners still have a pratfall in them - but at least the splinters are ancient and painful history.
Ellie
By George Vecsey
Friday, December 5, 2008
NEW YORK: When aging runners hear about the old 168th Street Armory, they talk about splinters the size of ice picks embedded in their shins, the red badge of courage of indoor track and field.
Dr. Norbert Sander, who has helped turn the armory in Manhattan into something of an international mecca, remembers his initiation to a banked wooden track, 11 laps to the mile.
In the early '60s, he was a slender runner at Fordham University in New York who had wheedled a handicap in the outside lane. In his desperation to hold off the better runners on the very first turn, Sander went stumbling into the furniture and the spectators.
"Besides the splinters, I had floor burn," Sander recalled Thursday at the gussied-up armory in Washington Heights. "I was as red as a beet. My skin looked like it had gone through a meat grinder."
This was the occupational hazard of the old rutted wooden track, mercifully replaced by a smooth artificial surface. The old fortress at West 168th Street and Fort Washington Avenue in New York has become the Armory Track and Field Center, home to runners from the inner city, suburbs, far-off blue states and red states, and even contingents of track-mad French athletes who make a pilgrimage every year.
The armory, beginning the 100th year since the laying of its cornerstone in December 1909, is a wonderful place, filled almost every day from November through March with hundreds of runners, bustling with the hopefulness and energy of youth.
The armory was built to house the 22nd Regiment of the National Guard, but soon it was holding major indoor meets, starting with the Xavier Games on Jan. 10, 1914. Sturdy enough to house tanks for training, it was closed to track from 1939 until January 1945. Then as the city deteriorated in the 1970s, the armory was used to shelter homeless men, and in 1985 it was closed to sports.
"Every window was broken," Sander has said. "All the plumbing was broken. We found hermits living in the corners."
With Sander and others pushing the city, the armory was saved for track, via a compromise. There is a renewed shelter on 168th Street (the inhabitants sometimes get free tickets to meets and are part of the community). The track was reopened in 1993 and renovated with a modern surface, handsome steel beams and light streaming from high windows.
"It looks like some old-fashioned French railroad station," said Peter Walsh, the co-owner of Coogan's, a restaurant on Broadway that has become a haven for track and field buffs. Walsh says the wholesome presence of hundreds of youngsters warming up on the streets around the armory has been the single most vital cause of the upgrading of the neighborhood.
The renaissance has happened under the leadership of Sander, an internist on City Island, as well as the only New York native to win the New York City Marathon, in 1974. Sander has cajoled an annual budget of $2.5 million with support from New Balance and other corporations (including Citigroup) and has urged New York area colleges to hang their banners and recruit regional athletes to stay home.
As part of the cornerstone anniversary, the armory is releasing a countdown of its 100 top moments. The favorite for No. 1 is the first four-minute indoor mile ever run by a high-school athlete, Alan Webb, in 3 minutes, 59.86 seconds, on Jan. 20, 2001.
This event is recognized in the attractive National Track Hall of Fame, relocated from Indianapolis, residing just inside the front door of the armory. The Hall of Fame has films and displays, including a section on Marion Jones, who after her career went to prison for lying under oath about her use of illegal steroids. She had to return her five Olympic medals. The display, incorporating Jones's admission of guilt, remains as a warning to young and old.
The armory has a major fan in Doug Logan, the chief executive of USA Track & Field, the national governing body for track and field.
On his first trip to the armory as a student at LaSalle Military Academy in Oakdale, New York, Logan observed the urban mix of competitors.
At the armory, he would do odd tasks for his speedier teammates, which gave him time to observe George Eastment, the track coach at Manhattan College, "teaching a group of runners how to run a curve." He also remembers "a floating dice game on a blanket on the back stairs - where I learned to play craps."
Logan later got to watch his friend at Manhattan College, Tyrone Pannell, a superb hurdler and high jumper. After graduation, Pannell joined the Marines and Logan joined the Army and both went to Vietnam, but only Logan came back alive.
"Tyrone never fell," Logan said, recalling the days of the wooden track. "The ham-and-eggers fell, but not Tyrone."
Most runners still have a pratfall in them - but at least the splinters are ancient and painful history.
Ellie