Good morning. It's Friday. We'll look at this year's New York City Marathon and someone who will have a lot to do with the race in the future. We'll also look at why the city's buildings commissioner abruptly resigned. |
 | | Roger Kisby/Getty Images for NBC Sports |
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It's the city's biggest block party, and then there's the race itself. The New York City Marathon will send 50,000 runners across bridges and up and down avenues on Sunday — about as many as in marathons before the pandemic and 20,000 or so more than last year, when registration was limited to 30,000. |
There are hills to be climbed and, this year, warm weather to be sweated through. But as our colleague Matthew Futterman said, "Deal with it, because the New York City Marathon will always be on the bucket list of anyone who has ever flirted with the idea of joining a mass of humanity on a 26.2-mile trek." |
One person who has run the marathon twice in the past — but who won't be among the 50,000 hitting the pavement this year — will soon have a lot to do with future marathons. |
Rob Simmelkjaer, above, was a vice president at ESPN, a host on MSNBC for the Olympics in 2012 and 2016 and, for the last two and a half years, the official in charge of Connecticut's state lottery. But Simmelkjaer always had his eye on one job — chief executive of New York Road Runners, the organization that stages the marathon. Last month the Road Runners announced that the job was his, starting Nov. 15. |
He will take over from Kerin Hempel, a former McKinsey & Company management consultant who has served as interim chief executive since the ouster of Michael Capiraso two years ago. Hempel, who had been responsible for strategy and planning for the Road Runners from 2010 to 2014, told the club she did not want the job permanently. |
As Simmelkjaer acknowledged in an interview with Matt, the Road Runners have been through a tough couple of years. The pandemic prompted the cancellation of several of the Road Runners' most profitable events, including the 2020 marathon, leading to an 80 percent drop in racing revenue in 2020. Roughly half of the 260 staff members lost their jobs in 2020 and 2021. Many of those positions have been filled again, now that races are being run and revenue is coming in. |
Hempel said last year that her goal was to reorient the Road Runners "to make it the best version of itself" and give her replacement the best possible chance of success. |
Hempel's departure and Simmelkjaer's arrival come as the Road Runners prepare another high-level change: George Hirsch, the longtime chairman of the group's board, announced plans to step down in mid-2023. Last week Matt wrote that Hirsch's designated successor, Nnenna Lynch, had failed a drug test and served a three-month suspension for taking too much of a nasal decongestant that contained a banned stimulant before a race in the 1990s. Hirsch has told board members that he plans to discuss the matter with them after the marathon. |
Simmelkjaer had made informal inquiries about the chief executive's job before it went to Capiraso in 2015. When the Road Runners began a national search after Capiraso's departure, he threw his hat in the ring. |
With the marathon returning to full strength, Simmelkjaer said the Road Runners was now "perfectly poised to go on offense." His plans include new events and "getting new runners" as well as an emphasis on running as a way to treat mental health struggles. |
"Anyone who has ever run any distance knows the benefits of running to mental health, to feeling that runner's high," he said. "I think it can be a part of the solution. We need to focus on using running to improve not just physical, but mental health." |
It's a mostly sunny day near the high 60s. At night, it's partly cloudy, with temps around 60. |
In effect until Tuesday (Election Day). |
Three more days to vote early |
Sunday is not only marathon day and the day when Daylight Saving Time ends — set your clocks ahead and sleep an extra hour — it's the last day of early voting in New York. You can also vote early today and tomorrow. Election Day is on Tuesday. |
More than 200,000 people in New York City have voted early — 212,746 had checked in at early-voting polling places by the end of the day on Wednesday, according to the New York City Board of Elections, an average of about 42,550 a day. The total over the first five days of early voting was about 10 percent of all the votes cast in 2018, the last time New York elected a governor but before the state allowed early voting. But at 594,751, the five-day total this time around was only about a third of the total for the first five days of early voting in 2020, when the presidency was on the ballot. |
Manhattan had the most early voters so far this year, with 68,494, and Staten Island the fewest, with 19,024. |
 | | Mostafa Bassim for The New York Times |
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Buildings commissioner resigns as prosecutors investigate possible gambling connections |
 | | Stephanie Keith for The New York Times |
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Eric Ulrich's biography came with an asterisk when he was a member of the City Council: He was the only Republican elected to office in heavily Democratic Queens. |
Ulrich's departure as buildings commissioner came a day after he was questioned by prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney's office who are investigating possible ties to organized crime and illegal gambling and two days after the district attorney's office seized his phone. Fabien Levy, a spokesman for the mayor, said Ulrich had submitted his resignation "in an effort to, in his words, avoid 'unnecessary distraction for the Adams administration.'" |
Investigators have been examining the possibility that Ulrich might have used his influence on behalf of mob associates, either when he was on the City Council, when he was a senior adviser to Adams before he was named commissioner or after he took charge of the Department of Buildings. |
Ulrich wrote to a federal judge in 2018 on behalf of a constituent, Robert Pisani, a reputed Bonanno crime associate who was awaiting sentencing on federal charges involving collection of an unlawful gambling debt, court records show. It is unclear if the letter figures in the investigation. |
Ulrich has not been accused of any wrongdoing. Neither he nor one of his lawyers could immediately be reached for comment. One of the owners of Aldo's, Anthony Livreri, who took over the establishment in 2018, declined to comment. |
Adams named Ulrich to head the Buildings Department in May despite Ulrich's admitted alcohol and gambling addictions and despite the letter in support of Pisani. Adams said on Thursday that he wished Ulrich and his family well but had no comment about the investigation. |
It was a typical early morning as I walked along 66th Street between Fifth and Madison. A porter was hosing down the sidewalk, and traffic was flowing. |
Suddenly, a big FedEx truck stopped in the middle of the block, halting traffic. |
The driver stuck his head out of the window and shouted out. |
The porter nodded, swung his hose around and gave the truck's windshield a thorough washing. |
The truck rumbled off, and the porter returned to cleaning the sidewalk. |
Glad we could get together here. See you on Monday. — J.B. |
| Melissa Guerrero, Ed Shanahan and Dana Rubinstein contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. |
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