Results tagged “bostonbehind”

This year the 111th Boston Marathon will be run, as usual, on Patriots Day. April 16th. The Boston Athletic Association (BAA) will be producing the event with over 500,000 spectators, as they have since the Marathon began in 1897. The Boston Marathon is the oldest annual marathon in the world - the modern marathon was revived by the Olympics in 1896, but is only run once every four years. As we were looking to run a story on the 26.2 we find out from the Globe that there were about six years that the 26.2 miles was just over 1,000 yards short of the total. Road construction and reconfiguration had eliminated a couple of the curves along the way which reduced the total distance. When the BAA found out about it they backed up the starting line. The trivia about the Marathon is almost endless - there's 111 years of trivia to keep you going.

Once upon a time in a land far, far…oh. No. It was Brockton. Back in 1890 James Edgar of Edgar's Department Store in Brockton sported a white beard and a belly laugh, he suited up as Santa Claus for an appearance in his Brockton Store. It wasn't Macy's, it wasn't Coke, it was a store in "The City of Champions" where the department store Santa was born. In the interest of full disclosure it appears that a Kris Kringle character did make an appearance in a Philadelphia store in 1841 – but Edgar's really marked the birth of the department store Santa. Kids growing up today know more of the "mall" Santa. He checks his list and listens to children's wishes from that coveted spot in the middle of the food court or a Santa's village placed in the crossroads of all the anchor stores of the mall (maybe where the Easter Bunny lives in the spring).

Ever wonder what makes a city tick? That is exactly what the Boston Behind the Scenes webcast attempts to answer. This is a new webcast and only has a couple of episodes, but even so, it has already proven itself exciting.