For New Yorkers, Alberto Arroyo is the inventor of their drug : jogging in Central Park. Everybody runs here : men, women, fat, thin, young, old people, even parents pushing their child in a stroller. This is more than sport, it is about expression of effort and surpassing of oneself. So, how do you become a legend, just running around the Reservoir ? Well, being the man who started it all can help…

Sixty years before, Alberto was the only one. His boss thought he was crazy, his colleagues looked askance at him. "I wasn't really popular, he admits. While they were smoking cigars at lunch I was out, running. And they complained about feeling bad !" It is obvious that Alberto does not look or sound like many. His motto "a healthy mind in a healthy body" made him totally reject the invading and unbridled materialism around : "New Yorkers are obssessed with money, quantity. During the interviews, people always want to know how many kilometers I've run in my whole life, how many a day, whatever… I really don't care. I'm only interested in living in harmony with nature and running for fun. That's it. I'm too old now to make performances. The most important thing is to be fulfilled in mind."

This veteran with a wrinkled conquistador face is not the usual grandaddy. Born in 1916 in Porto Rico, the Agadillo child remembers his parents : "My father kept on telling me not to steal, not to have guns, and my mother asked me to be generous and good with everybody. My parents were like saints to me", then he adds with a smile "I come from a deeply religious family". An altar boy on sundays, he hanged about the Law Courts with friends on weeks. They attended trials, heard about murders and robberies : "TV didn't exist and in a way I learned a lot about life." And his changed completely in 1935. He decided to leave everything behind for Europe, to try to find back a young german girl he met on the beach. "I did it for love." He repeats it again, then goes on : "Besides, I was broke." He was as foolish and passionate as you can be at twenty. At that time, and it tells long about the man, when immigrants left Europe for America, he realised he was doing exactly the opposite.

The adventure started illegally in Spain. He was arrested and barely avoided prison thanks to the judge's leniency. The worst was yet to come. He had no work permit and couldn't find any job at all. Then came the days of bread and oil sardines cans. Six month later, much thinner and starving, he resigned himself to leave Barcelona. "Two hours after I left, I heard on radio that the civil war had broken out in Spain." The old man still laughs sometimes at the Fate's good joke, and behind the smile one can see the paradoxical satisfaction of a "humble man" as he says, who also linked his life to History for a moment. A mix of sheer vanity and purity, just like children do, in a charming and disarming way. " I'm proud of what I've done. Even if I haven't made great studies, I've struggled to survive."

The first to run around the Reservoir is imitated today by hundred and thousand runners and celebrated as "The King of Central Park", title once given by the press, always ready to turn atypical stories into TV scripts. King without a crown so, but whose sculpture of his bust can be found in the NYC Museum. He prides himself on a letter Bill Clinton wrote to him and precises "I even met him".

In 1970, at 55 years old, he entered the first New York marathon, "by chance, after seeing a man with a number". He willingly tells the first modest years of the today most coveted race. Several runners are listenning now, they stopped to say hello, shake hands or ask for advice. He often explains in detail his story to some puzzled tourists. They can find the same telling generously explained inside many articles pinned on the Reservoir wall, just facing "his" bench which is a kind of office to him. A parents's association of pupils even organised a meeting between the old man and the children. He had a meeting with Jackie Kennedy-Onassis, the mayor of New York, not to mention Dustin Hoffman of course, "Marathon Man" himself.

Unfortunately, since 1996, Alberto cannot run anymore. A pain in his knee forces him to walk with a limp. Nevermind. Every morning, the also nicknamed "Mayor of Central Park" obstinately accomplishes his ritual : to walk one hour around the Reservoir, sweating. It is no particular heroism, just a stubborness to follow the path he chose for himself, as he always did.

Yet, Alberto's glory is a bit outdated now. He is the forerunner of a real social feature, indeed, but jogging is now so common that our old man belongs to a kind of museum. It is ancient history. Alberto doesn't even think about it : "I am a happy man. I don't need much. And I am still alive."

August 25, 1998.