’Tis the season . . . that President Obama should stay in Washington.
An oblivious Obama is hitting Manhattan tomorrow for three separate fund-raising and glad-handing events — creating a perfect storm for gridlock on what is already one of the busiest traffic days of the year.
The unbelievably ill-timed visit coincides with the lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree — a people-packed event as famous for snarling traffic as it is for its display of twinkling lights.
The tree lighting — which begins two hours after Obama lands at Kennedy Airport — will force street closures on Fifth and Sixth avenues between 48th and 52nd streets, as well as shuttered east-west blocks in that zone.
At the height of the yuletide Midtown madness — which draws tens of thousands of tree-gawkers every year — Obama will be zipping around in his motorcade, darting around the area of congestion and closing whole blocks in his path.
Obama will land at JFK at about 5 p.m., then will likely take a helicopter into lower Manhattan.
His first event is a $10,000-a-head party at a private residence, likely on the Upper East Side, said a source.
To accommodate the presidential motorcade, parts of the FDR Drive are expected to be closed at the height of rush hour.
Obama then heads to an uber-exclusive fund-raising dinner at Gotham Hall, an upscale catering joint on Broadway and 36th Street. Tickets go for a cool $35,800.
Expect 34th Street to be shut down in parts to transport the president to that soirée because the Secret Service prefers using wide thoroughfares.
Obama’s attending a reception in honor of gay rights at the Sheraton Hotel and Towers on Seventh Avenue and 53rd Street at 7:30 p.m. — a half-hour after the tree lighting kicks off.
Those two events are just a few short blocks apart.
As if the tree lighting and presidential visit aren’t bad enough, Wednesdays are extra busy in Midtown because of Broadway matinees.