Before 1976, the New York City Marathon course consisted of four laps around Central Park. The race was founded in 1970, when only 55 of the 127 starters finished. By 1975, with 339 finishers, it was thought to be outgrowing the park’s confines.

George Spitz wanted to see a big race held in 1976 to celebrate the U.S. bicentennial. NYRR founding president Ted Corbitt suggested a race that would cover the five boroughs.. There were concerns about logistical issues, but Spitz—tenacious to a fault—brought the concept to Manhattan borough president Percy Sutton, who was able to make it a reality.

Who was George Spitz? Born in New York City in 1922, he had a reputation for speaking his mind, fighting for what he believed in, and running—unsuccessfully—for public office. In 2001, when he ran for mayor of his hometown, he told the New York Times he was the “only vegetarian, only road runner, only veteran of World War II, only senior citizen, only union person, only Orthodox Jew, and only high school dropout in the race.”

Spitz didn’t win the mayoral race—nor had he claimed victory back in 1968, when he launched his first political campaign, this one a bid for State Assembly. In subsequent years, he ran again for Assembly (1974), State Senate (1970 and 1976), and City Council (1980 and 1995), losing each time. He had also, as he once told the New York Daily News, been fired from “well over 10 jobs.”

Nevertheless, Spitz left an indelible mark on his hometown. After serving as a radio mechanic with the Air Force in World War II, he graduated from Columbia University in 1949. He majored in economics and accounting—disciplines that informed his later work as an auditor for the New York State Department of Social Services. In 1968, he devised the idea of delivering welfare checks via automatic bank deposit—a system the city finally adopted in 1981.

Spitz ran more than two dozen marathons, and died in 2015 at age 92.