By Harry Nara · Last updated
- Where
- Central Park
- Tickets
- Free
- Time of year
- November
- Dates
- Set by a weekday rule, so the date moves each year
Always the first Sunday in November, so the date moves within the first week of the month. The 2026 running is the fiftieth on the five-borough course, which was first used in 1976 for the American Bicentennial.
The mistake is treating this like a stadium event with a best seat. It is twenty six miles through five boroughs, and where you stand decides what kind of day you get rather than how good a view you have. Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn gives you the largest, loudest, most sustained crowd. First Avenue on the Upper East Side gives you the famous wall of noise but is packed shoulder to shoulder in the low sixties. Williamsburg and Long Island City give you space, cafes and a subway stop at your back. The finish in Central Park, which is where most visitors instinctively head, is the one place you should not go: it is ticketed, penned, slow to leave and you see runners for about four seconds each.
What the NYC Marathon actually is
The largest marathon in the world by finishers, run through all five boroughs of New York on one Sunday every autumn. It starts at Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island, crosses the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge into Brooklyn, runs the length of Fourth Avenue, cuts through Williamsburg and Greenpoint, crosses into Queens, climbs the Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan, turns north up First Avenue, dips into the Bronx and comes back down Fifth Avenue to finish in Central Park. Roughly fifty thousand people run it and something like two million watch from the pavements, which makes it the single largest free public event in the city. The five-borough course is the version everyone means when they say the New York Marathon, and it is the anniversary of that course rather than of the race itself that the city is marking this year.
Where to watch the NYC Marathon
- Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn, around Atlantic and Flatbush. The best all-round spot on the course. It is wide, the runners are still tightly packed and moving well, the crowd is enormous and good-natured, and you are standing on top of a major transit hub with cafes and shops along the route. If you only pick one place, pick this one.
- Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, and Greenpoint after it. Miles ten to thirteen, and the most sociable stretch of the whole race. Bars and coffee shops open early and put speakers on the pavement, the L train drops you in the middle of it, and it is nothing like as compressed as the Manhattan avenues. This is the stretch to choose if you are spectating with people who want to sit down at some point.
- First Avenue on the Upper East Side. The one every runner talks about, because coming off the Queensboro Bridge into a mile of solid noise is the emotional centre of the race. The catch is that everyone knows it, so the low sixties and seventies are three or four deep by mid-morning. Walk twenty blocks further north and you get the same avenue with room to stand.
- The Bronx, around miles twenty and twenty one. Thin crowds, live music on the corners and runners at their lowest ebb, which makes it the place where cheering actually changes something. Easy to reach on the 4, 5 or 6, and almost nobody visiting the city thinks of going there.
- Central Park, at the finish. Named here so you can rule it out. Grandstand seating is ticketed, the surrounding blocks are penned and one-directional, exiting takes an hour, and the runners you have come to see pass a barrier in seconds. Watch the finish on a phone from somewhere with a chair.
Tickets and what it costs
Watching costs nothing anywhere on the course except the ticketed grandstand at the finish, and no part of the route requires a wristband, a booking or a pass. The expense is the weekend rather than the race. Marathon Sunday sits at the front of the New York autumn peak, hotels across Manhattan and brownstone Brooklyn run well above an ordinary November rate for the Friday to Monday, and rooms near the finish go earliest. If you are running rather than watching, entry comes through the lottery, a qualifying time, a guaranteed-entry scheme or a charity place carrying a fundraising commitment, and the lottery window closes many months before race day.
Official information and booking: www.nyrr.org/tcsnycmarathon
Getting there
The subway is the only sensible way to move on race day, and the course cuts Manhattan in half from bottom to top, so plan around crossings rather than distances. Getting to the Brooklyn stretches is easy: the R along Fourth Avenue, the 2, 3, 4 and 5 to Atlantic Avenue, the L to Bedford Avenue, the G through Greenpoint. First Avenue is served by the 4, 5 and 6 a couple of avenues west, and the Bronx miles by the same lines further north. What is genuinely hard is crossing the course east to west in Manhattan between roughly nine in the morning and three in the afternoon: the marked crossing points are few, staffed and slow. If you have anything booked on the far side of the course from your hotel, either travel before the race reaches you or take the subway under it.
Mistakes worth avoiding
Heading to the finish line in Central Park
It is the instinct of nearly every first-time spectator and it produces the worst day. The finish area is ticketed, penned and painfully slow to clear, and you see each runner for a few seconds against a barrier. Everything good about spectating this race happens out on the course.
Standing on First Avenue in the low sixties
This is the most famous stretch and therefore the most crowded, and by the time the mass field arrives you will be behind three rows of people. The same avenue twenty blocks north is far more comfortable and the runners are no less grateful.
Booking a brunch on the other side of the course
Crossing the route on foot in Manhattan during the race is slow and only possible at a handful of staffed points. Anything you have arranged across the course from where you are staying needs to happen before the runners reach you, or be reached by subway.
Trying to follow one runner to several points
It can be done, but only along the subway lines that shadow the course, and only with the field tracker running and a realistic pace estimate. Two spots is achievable. Three usually means missing all of them.
Turning up without a plan for the cold
Spectating is standing still outdoors for hours in early November, which is a completely different proposition from running through it. Layers, gloves and something hot in a flask make the difference between staying to the end of the field and leaving after the elites.
Other New York City events
Frequently asked questions
Where is the best place to watch the New York Marathon?
Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn, around Atlantic and Flatbush, is the strongest all-round choice: wide street, huge crowd, runners still moving well, and a major subway hub underneath you. Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg is the most sociable, and First Avenue on the Upper East Side is the loudest, though you need to go well north of the sixties to find room.
Do you need a ticket to watch the marathon?
No. The course is open to spectators along almost its entire length and no part of it requires a ticket, a wristband or a booking. The only exception is the grandstand seating at the finish in Central Park, which is ticketed, and which is the least rewarding place to watch from anyway.
What time does the race start and how long does it last?
The professional wheelchair and handcycle divisions go first thing in the morning, followed by the professional women, the professional men and then the mass field in waves through the middle of the morning. Because the field is so large and starts in waves, runners keep coming past any given point for several hours, so a mid-morning arrival at a mid-course spot will still catch the bulk of the race.
How does the marathon affect getting around New York?
The subway runs normally and is the only sensible way to travel, but the course cuts Manhattan from bottom to top, and crossing it east to west on foot between mid-morning and mid-afternoon is possible only at a few staffed points. Buses on crosstown routes are diverted, and driving anywhere near the route is not worth attempting.
Why is this year’s race a milestone?
The marathon has been run since 1970, but for its first six years it was laps of Central Park. The route through all five boroughs was created in 1976 to mark the American Bicentennial and has defined the race ever since, so this autumn marks fifty runnings of the course that made it famous.
Can you still enter the race?
Not on the day and not close to it. Places come through a lottery drawn many months ahead, through a qualifying time, through guaranteed-entry schemes for people who have run enough of the organiser’s other races, or through a charity place that carries a fundraising commitment. Charity places are the most reliable route for a visitor and need arranging the best part of a year in advance.
Sources
- New York Road Runners, the race organiser
- NYC Tourism, the city’s official marathon viewing guide
- NYPD, for street closures on race day
Dates on this page are checked against the organiser’s own listing and confirmed through 2027. Written and maintained by Harry Nara.