Before Frank Shorter won the 1972 Munich Olympics and kicked off the running boom of the 1970’s, Christo and Jeanne-Claude were friends with an organizer of the New York Marathon, Bob Urie. Urie represented the manufacturer of fabric for the Valley Curtain and Running Fence art projects.
Bob Urie ran the roads adjacent to the Running Fence installation in September 1976. The Runner’s World article, “A Fence made for Running” by Chris Knipp, finds Urie at the Valley Ford Post Office, the planned start and finish of the 2026 Running Fence Marathon. His son, Rob Urie confirmed that the family spent time in Colorado working on the Valley Curtain Project.
