Former President Donald Trump’s planned rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday is raising alarms from some New York politicians, even as officials say it’s being relegated to the city’s standard operating procedure for managing special events.
The ticketed event is free and scheduled to start at 5 p.m. on Sunday, though doors open at noon.
Mayor Eric Adams’ office referred to the NYPD for comment on preparations for the rally. A spokesperson for the department said police would deploy an array of resources and work with Garden officials on any specific security needs, but declined to say what those may be. The NYPD said there were currently no identified threats associated with the event.
However, the NYPD was planning several road closures around the Garden. All of 7th Avenue would be shut down between 29th and 34th Streets, it said i an Alert Saturday. In addition, 30th, 31st and 33rd streets would be shut between 6th and 8th Avenues; 32nd Street was set to close between 6th and 7th Avenues.
MTA spokesperson Aaron Donovan said the agency was ready to handle any crowds on public transit.
“It’s New York. There are special events all the time, all over the region,” he said in a statement, pointing to similar large-scale happenings, like the World Series at Yankee Stadium and leaf-peeping tourism upstate. “When there are events at Madison Square Garden, we provide sufficient transportation so people can leave their cars at home.”
Some New York politicians, however, have drawn more ominous comparisons, saying the Garden’s decision to let Trump hold a rally there was “disastrous” and even evoked a 1939 Nazi event held at the arena by the German American Bund, a Manhattan-based group that supported Adolf Hitler and the rise of fascism in Europe before dissolving a few years later.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton cited the 1939 rally during an interview on CNN this week, saying Trump was effectively “re-enacting” the event. Trump’s campaign responded by calling her comment hypocrisy after Bill Clinton accepted his presidential nomination there in 1992.
Garden officials referred to the Trump campaign for comment, which did not immediately respond to inquiries.
According to NPR’s “Code Switch” podcast, some 20,000 people attended the Bund rally, while thousands of protesters demonstrated outside the arena. Filmmaker Marshall Curry, who made a short documentary on that rally, said Trump is coming to New York City in the week before Election Day to stir controversy.
“He loves and hates New York and wants to show that even though most New Yorkers don't like him and don't want him here he can come back and still be cheered,” Curry said.
He said he made the documentary to show how Americans are not immune from the lure of demagogues, and pointed to a moment in the film where a young boy is seen on stage dancing and cheering as a protester is beaten by rallygoers.
Trump characterized his planned Madison Square Garden event as “a play for New York, [which] hasn’t been done in a long time,” at a Pennsylvania rally earlier this month.
A New York Times Sienna poll released Saturday has Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris leading Trump 66% to 27% among registered voters in New York City. The last Republican presidential candidate to win New York state was former President Ronald Reagan, who received nearly 54% of ballots in 1984.
This story has been updated to include information on street closures planned for former President Donald Trump's rally at Madison Square Garden.
