N.Y. Marathon big day for toilet company

NEW YORK, Oct. 31 (UPI) -- More than 2,000 portable toilets have arrived in New York City to take care of the needs of the thousands expected to compete in the New York Marathon.

The largest group, more than 1,600, are stationed at the Staten Island end of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, The New York Times reported. That's where 39,000 runners will start Sunday morning on a 26-mile course through the city's five boroughs.

The toilets are stationed along the marathon route at a rate of about one per mile with 300 more at the finish line in Central Park. The park gets the best-looking ones, colored green to fade into the background.

The marathon is the third-biggest portable toilet event in the United States, after the Rose Bowl Parade in Pasadena, Calif., and the Sturgis, S.D., motorcycle rally.

A Royal Flush, a Connecticut company, has been supplying toilets for the marathon for 15 years. Bill Malone, the owner, said the company has about 8,000 toilets and assembling one-quarter of them or a single event involves intricate logistics.

An even bigger headache is removing them quickly. Malone's employees can expect to get to work as soon as the race is over, and by Monday morning most of the johns will be sucked clean and headed out of the city.

"It's not a glamorous business," Malone said.