The red carpet was just the start of Mayor de Blasio’s full-court press
Monday to bring the 2016 Democratic National Convention to Brooklyn.
There were two marching bands, swag bags packed with freebies, a New
York Water Taxi ride past the Statue of Liberty, and food, lots of it — from
lunch at midcourt of the Barclays Center to a dinner with Broadway stars atop
the roof of the Met.
And what would a bid to bring the convention to Brooklyn be without
some Noo Yawk trash talk?
“There is no place that says the American dream burns brightly better than
Brooklyn,” said Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) in welcoming the Democratic
National Committee’s site-selection team.
“Like America, they counted us out, but we came back and America's
going to come back, and the convention's going to symbolize that — that knocks
anything that Pennsylvania, Ohio or Arizona could say.”
Philadelphia, Columbus, Ohio, and Phoenix also are vying to host the
2016 spectacle, as is Birmingham, Ala.
The 18 visiting DNC members traveled from Washington, on Amtrak. NYC
& Company, the city’s tourism arm, rolled out a red carpet outside Penn
Station, before whisking the Dems by bus to the ritzy New York Palace Hotel on
Madison Ave.
Previewing the plan for conventioneers, the DNC team then got their own
personal traffic lanes from midtown Manhattan to downtown Brooklyn.
With cops closing off parts of Second Ave., Chrystie and Delancey Sts.,
and Flatbush Ave, the normally hellish, traffic-clogged slog was slashed to 14
minutes, less than half of what it would be normally.
The DNC team disembarked to a pep rally. A marching band from the after
school program Brooklyn United played Kool & the Gang’s “Celebration” as 51
smiling city kids in red-white-and-blue bow ties waved flags from each state
and Puerto Rico.
Schumer, Police Commissioner William Bratton and City Council Speaker
Melissa Mark-Viverito took turns extolling New York and Brooklyn.
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