Episode 5: Unknown Legend

The Runner's World Show

Runner's World / Panoply

Sports

4.3 • 530 Ratings

🗓️ 8 June 2016

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

For over 20 years, the so-called World’s Longest Urinal was a New York City Marathon institution. At the height of its glory, it was an astonishing 350-feet long. The story of this urinal is one of DIY problem solving, triumph, and liquid tragedy. And behind this open air trough: An unknown legend named Vic Navarra. Vic was a fixture at the New York City Marathon for over a quarter of a century. He was a New York City firefighter who conducted the race start from the top of a fire truck's 85-foot ladder. When tens of thousands of runners poured onto multiple levels of the Verrazano bridge at the start of the marathon, Vic was the one conducting them. As the race start coordinator, he was the steward of this storied urinal, too. Together, their history gives us a glimpse into how the New York City Marathon scaled up to be the world class race that it is today. Episode Credits: Host: Rachel Swaby Producers: Rachel Swaby, Mervyn Degaños Editor: Audrey Quinn Editing help: Christine Fennessy, Sylvia Ryerson Fact checking: Jan McLeod Theme music: Danny Cocke Human Race editor in chief: David Willey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	If you ran the New York City Marathon between 1979 and, say, the early 2000s, you may have found yourself in the presence of something pretty special.
0:10.8	It was like a big attraction for everybody to come and see the world's longest urinal.
0:14.7	Wait, so when you say it was an attraction, like what do you mean by that?
0:18.7	Tourists would want to come and see where this urinal was and take pictures of it.
0:24.1	It was like taking a picture of the Statue of Liberty.
0:27.0	It was like, oh, wow, we're going to the marathon.
0:28.7	We've got to see the urinal.
0:30.3	It was a big attraction.
0:31.7	It really was.
0:32.8	You heard that right.
0:34.0	A urinal.
0:35.3	A really, really long one.
0:40.2	At the height of its glory, it was an astonishing 350 feet. Tourists could spot it in the wild at Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island in the days
0:47.1	leading up to the marathon. In the morning of, while runners were milling around before the race start,
0:52.6	enjoying complimentary coffee and hot chocolate.
0:55.9	They, or the men rather, had the option of relieving themselves in a massive open-air PVC trough.
1:04.7	Women benefited too, shorter porta-potty lines, a win for a scrappy race on the rise.
1:11.2	This surprisingly long urine catcher, it was more than just a fascinating place to take pictures.
1:17.7	This week on human race, the story of the world's longest urinal.
1:22.1	It's one of DIY problem-solving, triumph and liquid tragedy.
1:27.3	And behind this urinal, an unknown legend named Vic Navarra.
1:32.9	Vic was a fixture at the New York City Marathon for 25 years.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Runner's World / Panoply, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Runner's World / Panoply and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.