History on the Run: One UWSer Offers Miles and Monuments

By Tracy Zwick

On a recent gray Sunday, just before 8:30 a.m., 20 or so runners gathered at Columbus Circle, stretching, fiddling with their GPS watches, and making the polite small talk that often precedes a long run. At the center of the group was Bradford Goz, 71, an Upper West Sider with the calm demeanor of someone who’d done this many times. 

For the past decade or so, Goz has been organizing runs that double as seminars on New York City. Runners may come for the miles, but they stay for the way he reframes the city block by block, through monuments, architecture, nature, and lore. He tells the stories of places that are easy to miss at a walk, let alone at a run. 

This particular run, in honor of Women’s History Month, began with a statistic: “There are 145 public monuments in New York City dedicated to men,” Goz told the group. “There are six dedicated to eight women.” 

Though Goz’s career was in finance, he could easily be mistaken for a history professor, with a special certification in NYC. He’s spent years designing routes that highlight the best of the city, with the understanding that running is the perfect time for learning. “Runners have this alertness,” Goz said. “You’re engaged. What you learn while you’re running, you really absorb.”

And Goz has absorbed a lot. He’s run all of the city’s 436 neighborhoods, and is working his way through every street, path, trail, and public staircase in the five boroughs. 

He’s also peaked as a competitive runner at an age when many are closer to walkers than first-place finishes. Last year, Goz ran 20 races with New York Road Runners (NYRR), the non-profit that organizes New York’s preeminent running programming. He won his age group in 11 of those races and placed in another 5. He was NYRR’s 2025 Runner of the Year in his age group.

Goz is part of the New York Flyers running club, and Flyers often help out with pacing on his group runs. He schedules his history runs around the NYRR racing calendar, to help runners mix up their training, and offers pace groups from 9-minute miles, to a brisk walking tempo.

But the competitive side of running is only a small part of Goz’s story. “I like to run with friends,” he told WSR in a recent interview, “and I love leading people through the most beautiful neighborhoods and landmarks.” He’s spent the last 15 years finding them. 

Goz began the 10-mile Sunday run as he begins all his group runs, with an overview of the route. From the gilded female figure of Columbia rising atop the Maine Monument in the southwest corner of Central Park, the group would run to The Women’s Rights Pioneer Monument mid-park, then north to “Angel of the Waters” at Bethesda Fountain. Then further north to Harlem to check out a rare non-public monument, this one honoring Clara Hale, and the renowned “Swing Low” monument to abolitionist Harriet Tubman. Bathroom stops were built-in to the itinerary, which wrapped up in Riverside Park, where Joan of Arc and Eleanor Roosevelt memorials were on the agenda. 

Goz led the 9-minute-mile pace group, which met up with the Flyers-led 10-minute group along the route. The faster cohort included about a dozen runners, and an accomplished Golden Doodle named Coco, to whom 10 miles was nothing. (She’d previously done 18, but didn’t yet have her own Strava account.) At each stop, Goz discussed the memorial, the individuals it honored, the artists and models, and how and why each one came to be. He continued to answer questions as he ran, uphill and down, highlighting the architecture and landmarks we were passing at a comfortable clip.

Goz described his array of guided runs as “twenty runs that will change your life and help you change the world.” He posts them on Facebook and his website, and he’s easy to find on Instagram. Spring is one of his most active seasons, with a Central Park Ramble Run approaching on April 3rd and a Jewish History Run on April 5th, which includes a little-known Holocaust memorial in northern Central Park. 

He’ll offer an UWS-themed run on May 3rd that traverses some of the neighborhood’s highlights. “As special as people think the UWS is, when you run the nicest streets, it’s even more smashing. Goodbye, Paris!” Goz beamed. 

In terms of difficulty, “most of the runs are moderate” Goz explained reassuringly, noting that the Women’s History Month run is one of the most intense he offers and is meant to accommodate those training for spring marathons. Many of his outings, including “Women of Central Park” on June 7th, and “Harlem Heroes” on June 14th, offer a walk/run option. 

On the final stop of Sunday’s run, at the Eleanor Roosevelt Memorial at West 72nd Street, the runners who’d stayed for the duration gave Goz a round of applause. Coco had already dipped out at the Joan of Arc stop, and the rest of us were beat. But Goz was ready and willing to give a few more miles to anyone who needed to hit a marathon-training plan requirement, and he had stops to spare. “Anybody want to see the bust of Golda Meir at Broadway and 39th Street?” he asked. No takers.

But Goz, indefatigable, decided to run a few final miles with Ricardo Bastianon, who’d attended the run not knowing what to expect. “Brad was so interesting, so cool,” Bastianon said afterwards, glad about his last-minute decision to join.  

“I would’ve been completely lost in Harlem without him,” Bastianon said. “I’m used to training in Central Park, but even there, it’s not the same when I go through these places on my own.” 

Basitanon also enjoyed meeting other runners and the social parts of the run. But the highlight was Goz, he said: “Brad was just great.”

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