Sunday, January 18, 2004
When I was a schoolboy, indoor meets at the Armory were as close as I ever got to running where the elites ran. The Garden was never going to happen for me, but Marty Liquori had run at the Armory, and Craig Masback, and a lot of guys that were seniors when I was a freshman. I didn't get to go when I was a freshman-- my school only brought the runners they were looking to showcase-- but by my sophomore year I was going pretty much every Saturday, on the Long Island Rail Road, then the A train with the other guys on the team, in our red St. John the Baptist warm-ups, bunch of Long Island white boys walking around wide-eyed on 168th Street. The track was flat, and splintery-- with a raised wooden inner border, like an embroidery hoop. Races at the Armory-- I usually ran the 1000, sometimes the mile-- were marked by their physical quality. You had to be prepared to shove, and elbow, and someone always fell, ending up with long splinters from the track as a souvenir. Your team sat in the balcony above the track, and as the pack ran by, they'd pound on the metal balcony wall, and stamp their feet. The noise was incredible when you were running, and the vibration when you were up there was always enough to make you wonder if the structure could stand it. The place had the sort of over-heated quality that buildings in the City all seemed to possess back then--steam radiators that almost glowed. It was always cold out when we went to the Armory, so we found ourselves going from one temperature extreme to another.
Oddly enough, although I recall several of my races there pretty vividly, what I really remember about the Armory was that after we ran we'd go out to a pizza joint around the corner for meatball heros. As I sit writing today, I remember those heros-- I'm not sure if I could find the place today, and I know if I did it would be a hole in the wall with nothing that I would consider even picking up with my hands, let alone eating, but back then, man, those sandwiches were like nothing we could get back home in the 'burbs, and I knew that the City was going to be my destiny.
Now that the Track and Field Hall of Fame is going to be at the Armory, I know I'll probably go back. For the most part I try to avoid exercises in nostalgia, but this is one I think I'll allow myself.
Oddly enough, although I recall several of my races there pretty vividly, what I really remember about the Armory was that after we ran we'd go out to a pizza joint around the corner for meatball heros. As I sit writing today, I remember those heros-- I'm not sure if I could find the place today, and I know if I did it would be a hole in the wall with nothing that I would consider even picking up with my hands, let alone eating, but back then, man, those sandwiches were like nothing we could get back home in the 'burbs, and I knew that the City was going to be my destiny.
Now that the Track and Field Hall of Fame is going to be at the Armory, I know I'll probably go back. For the most part I try to avoid exercises in nostalgia, but this is one I think I'll allow myself.
