NEW YORK -- Officials are quietly making plans to police spontaneous protests in Central Park on the eve of the Republican National Convention - expecting thousands of demonstrators to converge on the vast urban parkland regardless of the outcome of this week's court battles.

"We believe they're going to the park," a high-ranking police source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Tuesday. "You can't keep them out."

Officially, the New York Police Department has stood by its demands that a massive anti-war demonstration on Sunday conclude on a stretch on highway on the western fringe of Manhattan. Protest organizer United for Peace and Justice has fought that plan in court, arguing it has a right to stage a rally on the Great Lawn in Central Park following a march past the convention site, Madison Square Garden.

Lawyers for the group told a judge Tuesday that it would cancel the rally if it is denied a permit, but large groups of demonstrators are still likely to gather in Central Park throughout the day.

United for Peace and Justice has argued that the rally would continue in the tradition of a 1981 concert by Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel that drew at least 400,000 fans, and a 1982 anti-nuclear demonstration attended by more than 750,000 people, considered the largest protest in the city's history.

Park officials counter that no gatherings of that magnitude have taken place on the Great Lawn since the area was restored, from 1995 to 1997. Organizers of a free Dave Matthews concert last September controlled the crowd by issuing 70,000 tickets and hiring 400 security guards, they said.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, when asked this week about a possible unauthorized rally following Sunday's march, said that police have no plans to restrict access to the park.

"People are free to enter Central Park," he said. "We'll deal with situations as they arise."

Kelly didn't elaborate, and a Parks Department spokeswoman declined comment.

But police officials are assuming that protesters, even if denied permission to use the park, will end up there anyway on Sunday, and perhaps Saturday as well, said three police sources who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The department expects demonstrators, after marching past the arena on Seventh Avenue, will disperse and migrate to the Great Lawn or elsewhere in the park, the sources said. Police believe the turnout for an unauthorized protest - which would lack a stage and sound system - could be much smaller than what organizers have projected, they added.

Police would respond by dispatching an undisclosed number of uniformed and plainclothes officers - some on bicycles and scooters - to the park. Protesters would risk arrest only if they became disorderly or tried to disrupt other park activities, another source said.

"We don't want to be confrontational," one of the sources said.

The sources declined to detail any other possible enforcement measures.

The protesters would compete for space with between 150,000 and 200,000 people - the average turnout in Central Park each day on summer weekends. This Sunday, games are scheduled on eight softball fields on the Great Lawn, along with a half marathon on roadways within the park.

Central Park, which opened in 1859, covers 843 acres between West 59th and West 110th streets.

© Copyright 2004 Associated Press

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