It is with great sadness that we mark the passing of Dave Blackstone, the Central Park Track Club’s founder and first president, who died Sunday evening after a long and courageous battle with cancer. A memorial service will be held this coming Sunday to which all members of the Central Park Track Club are invited. The details are as follows:
Frank Campbell Funeral Chapel
1076 Madison Avenue at 81st Street
Sunday, January 25th
2:30pm
Dave’s widow, Lynn Blackstone, has expressed her wishes that donations may be made in Dave’s honor to Memorial Sloan Kettering and the Central Park Track Club.
Last year, we had the honor as a club to induct Dave into our Hall of Fame. Frank Handelman introduced Dave and we reprint his words below.
If you would like to share your thoughts or memories about Dave, please direct them to centralparktrackclub@gmail.com.
Sincerely yours,
The Central Park Track Club
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Frank Handelman’s Speech for Dave Blackstone’s CPTC Hall of Fame Induction
“Our first inductee is the person most responsible for the existence of this team. He is the original founder of the club. After running at the Central Park reservoir for years, he started racing, and in the fall of 1972, decided to turn the park regulars into a team. He came up with that fantastic name, Central Park Track Club.
A Columbia Law School graduate, he had been a varsity diver at NYU and served in the United States Marine Corps before going to law school. In addition to his law practice, he devoted countless hours to the club in its first decade. He was President and Coach of the team from 1972 to 1980. He personally recruited most of the team’s runners in those first years. He was also a highly competitive athlete, running the pre-Five Borough NYC marathon, over the course that covered 4 laps of the park’s tough 6-mile loop, in 2:40:07.
He started the club, literally, in his apartment on East 85th Street, along with his wife Lynn, who served as an officer for many years. She has competed for the team since its inception, and is still active as a masters runner. In fact, Lynn won the Fifth Avenue Mile this year in her age group.
It is perhaps his greatest gift to us all that at the founding meeting, the following language, which he wrote, was adopted as Article 1 of the club’s first constitution:
“The purposes of this club are to foster amateur track and field and road racing in the metropolitan area, and to serve as a competitive racing club for all, regardless of race, religion, national origin or sex.”
As we look around this room, we see his mission of 1972 has been fulfilled.
Our first inductee for 2007 into the Central Park Track Club Hall of Fame, Dave Blackstone, the true father of our team.”
We will miss Dave deeply, and his example will push us to keep running hard for years and years and years to come.