Mayor Doomberg has canceled the NY Marathon because . . . it was to have started on Staten Island, and the optics of starting a race at ground zero for Hurricane Sandy were simply unthinkable. People there are still under water and without electricity, food and heat.
AP Obama reports here:
The storm forced cancellation of Sunday's New York City Marathon. Mayor Michael Bloomberg reversed himself Friday and yielded to mounting criticism about running the race, which starts on hard-hit Staten Island and wends through all five of the city's boroughs. ... [O]n Staten Island, there was grumbling that the borough was a lower priority to get its services restored. "You know it's true," said Tony Carmelengo, who lives in the St. George section of Staten Island and still does not have electricity. Added his neighbor, Anthony Como: "It's economics. Manhattan gets everything, let's face it."
