There is a downside to hosting the starting point of an annual event as huge and celebrated as the Boston Marathon, and it includes frozen traffic, unattractive portable toilets in the middle of town, and mounds of discarded clothing and banana peels left in the wake of 20,000-plus runners. The upside is the national attention, schoolchildren meeting elite athletes, and a huge burst of civic pride.
Hopkinton has long reveled in its role as the Marathon's starting place each April. But lately, local leaders are thinking it might be nice to attract a little more glory to balance the grime, and have something to show for the event during the rest of the year.
"We're very proud of the sacrifices we make to run the Marathon," said Selectman Michael Shepard. "All these people come for the Marathon . . . and Hopkinton gets its little moment in the sun for that short period, but it's an opportunity for this area of New England to show itself off."
Leading the effort are state Senator Karen Spilka, an Ashland Democrat, and a former director of the race, Tim Kilduff, now president of the Hopkinton Athletic Association. Spilka and Kilduff dream of creating an identity that brands Hopkinton and other towns along the 26.2-mile route to Boston as health- and fitness-conscious communities that want to share their "creative economy," as Spilka dubs it.
She said what's needed are more reasons to stay and play in the area, as well as better promotion of existing attractions. One of the attractions that Spilka and Kilduff hope will lure athletes and their fans into spending a little more time in town is a privately funded Marathon Hall of Fame and Museum, which would pay tribute to runners and races around the world.
They already have their eye on an old farmhouse at 83 East Main St. (Route 135), near the 1-mile mark on the Marathon route, for the museum. The property is part of the 720 acres of Weston Nurseries land acquired last year by Boulder Capital LLC, a Weston-based developer with plans to use it for a sprawling multiuse project known as Legacy Farms.
Boulder goes before Town Meeting in May to ask for approval of the Legacy Farms master plan, according to Roy S. MacDowell Jr., president of Boulder Capital.
MacDowell said his company would consider donating the house for use as a museum, but it depends partly on the town.
"Our attitude is we think it's a great idea," he said of the museum proposal. "We just need the community to support it as part of our overall development."
One of the obstacles to putting together a proposal like this, said Spilka, is the lack of an entity promoting the area as a whole. Boston's western suburbs form the largest region in the state without some sort of travel and tourism office, she said.
"The potential is really unlimited," said Spilka. "I think it would really help travel and tourism, the shops along the way, the restaurants, the hotels, motels."
Visitors drawn by the Marathon, said Spilka, might also be interested in the state parks in Ashland and Hopkinton, the Center for Arts in Natick, the Amazing Things Arts Center and its Amazing Firehouse in Framingham, the Metrowest Symphony Orchestra of Hopkinton, or the New England Wild Flower Society's Garden in the Woods in Framingham.
"We have all these people who come for the Marathon," she said. "We don't even have a pamphlet to give them to show them all the wonderful things that are here."
Spilka's district includes the first four towns along the Marathon's route, from Hopkinton to Ashland, Framingham, and Natick; the race continues through Wellesley, Newton, and Brookline before finishing in Boston.
Kilduff touts Hopkinton's twin-city relationship with Marathon, Greece, the event's legendary source in ancient times. He points to the community's rich ties to sports history through people like lifelong Hopkinton resident George V. Brown, who was an Olympic coach, a member of hockey halls of fame in the United States and Canada, and a top Boston Athletic Association official for decades, as well as the Marathon's official starter for 33 years. Kilduff even wants to recruit Framingham State College to help the area form an identity based on health consciousness, using its well-respected nutrition program.
"All of that is just waiting to be pulled together and shaped into an image that says this is a healthy place to live," said Kilduff. "When you start linking all those little attributes together, it presents a powerful story, and it just happens to be centered around fitness and nutrition."
The Boston Athletic Association, which organizes the Marathon, is in favor of the museum proposal.
"We are supportive of it because Hopkinton does hold a special place in Boston Marathon history," said Guy Morse, executive director of the BAA. "We applaud the whole notion of finding positive ways to celebrate the event and make it more a part of the fabric of the MetroWest region."
Both the BAA and the Sports Museum of New England in Boston hold Marathon memorabilia, he said, but there's room for more than one such venue.
Shepard, the Hopkinton selectman, supports the museum as a great reward for the many volunteers in town that work hard to make the event run smoothly each year. (The BAA reimburses the towns for most costs, he noted.)
The schools provide space for waiting runners, both the Police and Fire departments quadruple in size for the day, residents can't leave their driveways, and, like any event that draws a large crowd of people, there has to be an antiterrorism plan in place, he said. He was too polite to mention the fallout from runners relieving themselves on yards and trees, but the BAA has added more portable toilets in recent years and taken other steps to try to mitigate problems associated with more than 20,000 visitors waiting in the town's center for hours leading up to the race's noontime start.
Still, Hopkinton officials embrace the Marathon; they just want to figure out how to better capitalize on it.
There are several other ideas in the works. Kilduff said they want to look into making the starting line permanent, a year-round advertisement for the big race. Now, it is repainted every year. And, he said, some signage on Interstate 495 promoting the Marathon might be nice.
Already this year, a bronze sculpture of George V. Brown will be unveiled April 13, which along with a Metrowest Symphony Orchestra performance will launch Hopkinton's weeklong series of events leading up to the 112th running of the Marathon on April 21. And around the same time, the town is hoping to receive an eternal flame sent by officials in Marathon.
"What we're finding is the more visibility we get through this kind of stuff, the more ideas we get," said Kilduff.
Townspeople view themselves as "stewards of the start," he said, and using that to bolster the region just makes sense.
"The secret to all of this is it has to be MetroWest-focused and not just Hopkinton," he said. "There are no hotels in Hopkinton, and I don't think they're going to be building them in the next year, if ever."
Spilka said there are endless ways to champion Hopkinton and the area as a destination, not just a pit stop.
"I don't think it will be realized fully in my lifetime even, and that's really exciting," she said.
Lisa Kocian can be reached at 508-820-4231 or lkocian@globe.com.
