The first New York City Marathon was held in 1970 with a course entirely in Central Park. The entry fee was just $1 and only 55 out of the 127 entrants finished, receiving cheap wristwatches and baseball or bowling trophies as prizes. Today, the New York City Marathon is the world’s largest and most popular marathon, with over 52,000 finishers in 2018.

In the above photograph taken by Emile Bocian, Kenny Moore of Oregon crosses the finish line of the 1979 New York City Marathon; placing 51st out of 10,455 runners with an official time of 2:25:13. Last year, Nancy Yao Maasbach, President of MOCA, and Yue Ma, Director of Collections at MOCA ran as two of the seven members on the MOCA charity team. The team raised a total of $88,000 to support the museum’s mission. They are both running again this year.

Today MOCA Spike 150 Stories crosses its finish line as well. Thank you for following along on our journey through 150 stories told from items in MOCA’s collection. Next week, our team of 42 runners will participate in the 49th New York City Marathon. To support MOCA’s mission and help us beat last year’s fundraising record, you can donate to the MOCA Team here. Wish our runners luck as they run on Sunday, November 3rd!