President Obama has an unwelcome holiday gift for New Yorkers — he’ll be coming to Midtown the same day the streets will be impossibly clogged by the Rockefeller Plaza tree-lighting ceremony. He has picked Wednesday, one of the busiest gridlock-alert days of the year, to descend on the area with his motorcade for a fund-raiser and party.
While throngs squeeze into the blocks around Rockefeller Center, where teen heartthrob Justin Bieber will be performing, the president and his entourage will be just a few blocks away at the Sheraton New York Hotel.
It’ll be the double whammy of all traffic nightmares.
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“Is it going to be crazy, between Obama, Bieber and the tree lighting? Yes, it’s going to be crazy . . . Nobody is going to be looking forward to it. The already maddening traffic situation is going to be even more maddening,” lamented Rob Byrnes, president of the East Midtown Partnership, a business-improvement district.
The Rockefeller Center festivities always bring chaos to the businesses he represents, Byrnes said, and the simultaneous visit from the president means “additional chaos.”
A city official said 48th, 49th, 50th and 51st streets between Fifth and Sixth avenues will be subject to closures for the tree lighting.
But that doesn’t include the additional closings that come with a presidential motorcade that will make its way to the hotel on Seventh Avenue at 53rd Street.
Obama will be attending a fund-raiser held by the LBGT community at 7:30 p.m., followed by a holiday reception billed as a thank-you to his early supporters.
The New York Republican State Committee criticized his decision to host an event during the tree lighting, which a city official said was scheduled as far back as August.
“If in fact the trip to New York is strictly a fund-raiser, I think it’s a bit selfish on the part of the Democrats and the administration to do so on an evening which is kind of special for many people in New York City,” Republican spokesman Tony Casale said.