Republicans camp on enemy turf

By ROGER FRANKLIN

When George Bush and his Republicans descend on New York this weekend for their convention, they will learn a thing or two about grass and how expensive it is. Not the sort people smoke, which is quite cheap, but the kind you sit on, which is much harder to find in the Big Apple and goes for about US$3 million ($4.6 million) for half a hectare.

In round terms, that's what it cost to fix the Great Lawn in Central Park, where every weekend when the weather is nice thousands of the city's concrete cliff-dwellers lay claim to towel-size patches of turf.

Other than voting for Democrats, which New Yorkers have done with only rare exceptions since Republican Abe Lincoln defied their wishes and won the White House, the loveliness of Central Park is the one subject on which everyone - rich and poor, black and white - can always agree.

After a work-a-day week in a city where teeming sidewalks make every stroll a slow-speed slalom, where the traffic is seldom anything but congested, and where the soundtrack of daily life is a demented symphony of sirens, horns, and cabbies' curses, the park is a refuge and retreat from Manhattan's madness.

It is nice to go there, stretch out on your stomach, watch the ants up close and catch the scent of chlorophyll instead of exhaust fumes. Everyone - including local Democrats, who hate George Bush - appreciate the park's blessing and the reason it needs to be protected.

A few years ago, when flocks of Canada geese spied the newly reseeded and refurbished Great Lawn and decided to call it home, City Hall immediately hired a pack of Labradors, who did nothing but chase the birds back into the air every time they settled to chew and defecate.

The dogs kept it up for months until the flocks finally took the hint and departed for quieter, though less verdant, pastures.

This weekend, as Gothamites know and fear, dogs won't do the trick if protesters who are following the Republicans into town defy a judge's order and head for the park to rally against Bush.

Protest organisers hoped for as many as 500,000 for a march past the convention's headquarters at Madison Square Garden, which Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the city's fathers have said will be just fine. It's where they go from there that may cause trouble.

Officials want the marchers to assemble for speeches and chanting on a stretch of the West Side Highway beside the Hudson River, where disruption will be minimal and, if things turn nasty, there are few obvious targets.

The demonstrators insist that only Central Park is a fit venue. And that's where, as the city held its breath last week, New Yorkers focused their broader anxieties about what the next few days may bring.

Truth is, life isn't going to be pleasant anywhere, and innocent bystanders know it with a dread certainty.

The cops are closing streets for blocks around, meaning redirected traffic will snarl the streets from the East River to the Hudson. On a normal workday, a mid-afternoon taxi trip across town, a distance of no more than a mile, costs around $7.

"Next week," joked cabbie Anoop Singh, "you will need to give me the mortgage on your apartment if I am taking you anywhere."

Except he wouldn't be hacking in any case, he added, because he had long ago decided that Convention week was a perfect time for a week's working vacation in the kitchen of his brother-in-law's Queens restaurant. "It is hard work and hot," he said, "but it will be better than driving."

Singh is far from alone. Many businesses are simply shutting down. Garment District manufacturers' agent Chen Ng, whose office is just south of the Garden, says employees are nervous.

"They worry about the protests. They worry about bombs. They worry about police not letting them get to work. So I say, 'You try, you get here. Fine. You try, you don't get here, that not fine, but I handle it.' No other choice."

Heightening the city's anxiety are the whispers coming out of protesters' internet bulletin boards. One urges demonstrators to get their hands on shotgun shells, extract the cordite and sprinkle it through the subway system, particularly in the trains that run under the Garden.

Bomb-sniffing dogs would catch a whiff of the nitrate, the anonymous poster theorised, leading cops to shut down the transit system and bring the entire city to a halt.

It would be reassuring if protest organisers disavowed those sort of plans and sentiments, but so far only a few have done so - and then only quietly. Others appear to relish the threat of mayhem.

Here's how Tom Hayden, Jane Fonda's ex and leader of the riotous protests at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, saw the situation in Newsday: "Adding to the preconvention tension is the floating rumour that Karl Rove, President George Bush's campaign strategist, is laying a trap for the protesters, counting on the very fact of disorder to bolster the president's image as a strongman. In this view, protesters are supposed to behave themselves lest they throw the election to Bush."

Hayden hinted strongly that a little violence might be the shot: "A confrontation in New York could be a sign that four more years of this President's policies will destabilise our country.

"Many voters could conclude that Bush, if he wins in 2004, will plunge the country into strife not seen since the 60s."

New York's political leaders have responded with cheerful predictions that everything will turn out just fine. Bloomberg is offering protesters discounts in the city's stores, while Senator Hillary Clinton has urged them to have a good look at a rare species. "We've never had so many Republicans in Manhattan, so I would urge all New Yorkers to come from everywhere, and enjoy the scene," she said. "They'll get to see a Republican. Maybe it's the first Republican they've ever seen in their lives."

If things don't go well, if tear gas replaces car fumes, and TV screens blaze with images of anarchy, the impact on voters won't be known until November.

Meanwhile, New Yorkers who can't understand why Republicans chose to meet in the heart of enemy territory, are living with a disquieting thought. They survived September 11, partied through last year's big blackouts, and have come to accept the security guards who now screen everyone entering Midtown's skyscrapers.

But this could be too much. If worst comes to worst, even the solace of Central Park's Great Lawn may be taken from them. It's no fun having to kick tear gas canisters out of the way before you can spread a towel.