NEW YORK — City officials clashed with protest organizers during a Tuesday court hearing over their bid to hold a rally for 200,000 people in Central Park on the eve of next week's Republican National Convention.
A gathering of that size would damage the park's Great Lawn, New York officials argued during the acrimonious, two-hour session. But demonstrators said that denying them a permit to rally Sunday would be a violation of their free-speech rights.
Under a prior agreement, marchers will be allowed to parade past Madison Square Garden, the site of the convention. But there is no plan for where they will go afterward. And as the verbal sparring intensified Tuesday, some predicted that thousands would gather in 843-acre Central Park anyway -- drawing an uncertain police response.
"Nobody thought we'd be facing such a cliffhanger so close to the convention," said Bill Dobbs, spokesman for United for Peace and Justice, an antiwar group that has been lobbying for the permit. "There's been a lot of tension growing over this question, and we still don't know what's likely to happen in the streets."
New York County Administrative Judge Jacqueline W. Silbermann said she would rule today on the group's lawsuit seeking a permit and offered to help both sides find common ground.
March organizers, who initially said that they would call off the rally if they lost the court fight, have indicated that they might be amenable to compromise -- including putting fewer demonstrators in the park at different locations.
City officials have opposed the request to hold a gathering on the 55-acre Great Lawn, in the middle of Central Park, from 79th to 85th streets. They say that it would destroy reseeded grass and dramatically worsen congestion in an area that is usually packed Sunday afternoons with New Yorkers and tourists.
They also noted that the city had approved a Central Park rally permit during the convention week for the National Organization for Women. But that event, officials said, would include only 50,000 demonstrators and take place on the East Lawn, which some observers believed was less susceptible to environmental damage.
"The [Great Lawn] cannot accommodate an event of this size," said Jonathan Pines, a city attorney. It was "simply too late" to consider the plan, he said.
