Where to Watch the NYC Marathon 2026: Fourth Avenue, First Avenue and the Central Park Finish
The runners start on Staten Island at 8 a.m. and the city becomes the stadium. Here is where to stand — Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn, the First Avenue wall of noise, Museum Mile — and how to track a runner mile by mile.
The best seat in New York City today is a curb. The TCS New York City Marathon leaves Staten Island from 8 a.m., when the professional wheelchair racers start, through the last wave at 11:30 a.m., and for the next several hours the five boroughs belong to the spectators as much as to the roughly 60,000 runners. The guides read by this desk this morning agree on the first rule: pick two or three spots, not five — the subways are crowded, cell service gets unreliable along First Avenue and near the Central Park finish, and the course does not wait.
Brooklyn is where the day is loudest early. Fourth Avenue, from miles 2 through 6, is the long, wide first look as runners come off the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge — spectators cannot watch from the start or from any of the race's bridges, so the avenue is the first real vantage point. Lafayette Avenue in Fort Greene, around mile 8, and Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, around miles 11 and 12, are the borough's other classic stands. The Pulaski Bridge, at the halfway mark, is closed to spectators; the Queens side just beyond it is where the cheering resumes, in Long Island City at miles 14 and 15, right before the long, quiet climb over the Queensboro Bridge.
Manhattan gives the race its famous wall of noise. Runners come off the Queensboro Bridge onto First Avenue, miles 16 through 18 on the Upper East Side, where the crowds are deepest — arrive early if that is your spot. The official Charity Cheer Zone sits at Fifth Avenue and 120th Street in East Harlem, around miles 19 and 20, and the run home passes Museum Mile on Fifth Avenue, miles 22 through 24, before turning into Central Park for the finish near Tavern on the Green, where finish-line grandstand viewing is ticketed and controlled.
To follow one runner instead of the whole field, the free TCS New York City Marathon App, built for New York Road Runners, tracks runners mile by mile and carries live coverage of the professional races where rights allow. And one race-morning warning the guides repeat: daylight saving time ended at 2 a.m. today, so double-check that your phone updated before you trust the alarm that gets you to the curb.
