Protesters Wait for GOP Convention Invite

"Sure we are in a different world since September 11th, but that doesn't mean our nation has given up its core values," said Donna Lieberman, the NYCLU's executive director. "When you invite the Republicans to town for their convention, you are inviting all of those who oppose them, and we need to welcome both."

New York Parks and Recreation Commissioner Adrian Benepe talks of Central Park's journey back from its "dustbowl days" of the 1980s. There have been re-soddings and re-landscapings, and it's all so lush and beautiful. It cannot hold a crowd of more than 80,000, he said. If protesters plan something bigger, they should think about going to Flushing Meadow Park, in Queens.

"Central Park is a respite from the city, a place for people to lay out and picnic," Benepe said. "They have a right to protest, but they don't have a right to destroy the Great Lawn."

The refurbished Great Lawn of Central Park has held larger crowds. The New York Philharmonic Web site states that more than 135,000 chardonnay sippers crowd the lawn many summer nights for concerts.

"This is New York's public square, not a lawn museum," said William Dobbs, an organizer with United for Peace and Justice. "We have hundreds of thousands of people coming from all over the nation, and don't tell us to march in Queens."

Dobbs's argument has proved persuasive. For the first time in recent memory, the New York Times and New York Post editorial boards took the same side of an issue -- the local equivalent of Jupiter aligning with Mars.

The New York Post framed its view this way: "A gaggle of lefty agitators wants to convene in Central Park this summer to give President Bush a little grief. But the Parks Department says no, because they might bend the grass. Well, too bad.

" 'Keep Off The Grass' appears nowhere in the First Amendment."

Former mayor Koch advises Bloomberg to let the marchers post a bond and be done with it. New York is all about people yelling at each other.

"Those protesters aren't going to change a single mind, but they certainly have a right to protest," Koch said. "And I'll be there greeting them and saying, 'Thanks for coming!' "