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by CORMAC GORDON
You know you've arrived as a New York City institution when Chuck Schumer is plugging you on local radio and The Mayor is threatening to participate -- which in this case means throwing on a pair of jogging shoes, not Michael Bloomberg's usual sartorial style.
But that's the way it is for the third annual Stephen Siller 5K Tunnel-to-Towers Walk/Run, an event that's taken on a life of its own since the big buildings on West Street fell.
By now just about everyone in America knows the story of Siller, the West Brighton firefighter father of five young children who ran through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel in full fire gear because that's who he was, and who disappeared in the aftermath of the attack.
To many, the Siller legend has become a symbol of the sacrifices of that day, a touchstone of the response of New Yorkers; something like Point Thank You just up the street from Ground Zero and the singing of God Bless America in the seventh inning at Yankee Stadium, only in real life and living color.
The compelling nature of the Siller tale is the reason hotels downtown are booked to capacity for Sept. 26, when an estimated 6,000 participants will run or walk from Brooklyn to where the Towers once stood.
From the beginning, Siller's individual heroism was enough to sweep away any of the bureaucratic snarls to putting on an event that shuts down a major downtown artery for hours.
And it was enough to raise the initial seed money and generate the first-year interest.
But what about the way the event's grown and matured? So much so that now it needs its all of the 500 or so volunteers, mostly Islanders, who help to put it on.
That can't be about one individual.
Not even one with a story so unique that they use it as lesson material in fire department probie schools across the country and talk about it in the locker rooms at West Point and Annapolis.
And it's not.
"This city has embraced the run," explained organizer Russ Siller on Sunday, three years and a day after his youngest brother died. "It's not about just Stephen, or just firefighters. Everyone has ownership. Because of that, it has become bigger than anything we ever imagined."
How big?
Show up at the finish line on the 26th and watch participants from almost every state, from dozens of foreign countries, almost all of them with a personal reason for participating, or see firefighters line the entire length of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, American flags unfurled as the runners pass.
Take a look into the eyes of the crowd at the finish line, each and every one who has their own reason for showing up that day.
"I wondered if interest might lessen with the passage of time," Russ Siller said recently. "But it hasn't."
In fact, it continues to grow.
This year, the Siller Run will include what is called a Brother for Brother Firefighter Remembrance, in which firefighters from departments all over the country will send teams of runners to New York as part of race-within-a-race competition of the different departments.
The idea is to bring people together and use it as a way to raise money for burn units in the city and across the country.
"We are hoping we can get 343 departments to participate," Siller said. "We'd like to have one department for each of the New York firefighters who died that day."
And don't bet they won't reach their goal.
This past week there were memorial events all over America, hundreds of them in the metropolitan area. Some -- like the flowers that cropped up all over Staten Island on street signs that hold names of those lost on 9/11 -- are quiet displays. Others, like the dedication of the memorial in St. George on Saturday, were necessarily less private.
Unfortunately, and, it seems, unavoidably, more than a few of the others were grandstanding made-for-media-coverage events dreamed up by politicians of every stripe and at every level. Those were usually smelled out pretty quickly.
Americans, and particularly New Yorkers, have become discerning about memorials they choose to embrace and those they'll take a pass on. The average citizen, if not some of the folks who are supposed to be leading them, has a great nose for what's real and what isn't when it comes to such matters.
But apart from just about anything else that's been organized in response to Sept. 11 stands the Siller Run, an idea that began as small talk in some North Shore kitchens and at some Island barbecues, and has been carried on a wave of support from all over the country.
"It's been an amazing thing to watch," said Siller.
(For information regarding participation in the Stephen Siller 5K Walk/Run go to www.tunneltotowersrun.org or pick up registration forms on Staten Island at Victory Sports, Castleton Corners, or Staten Island Furrier, New Dorp.)
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