Spike Lee, former-Knicks add starpower to keep Madison Square Garden from moving

Spike Lee left his bright orange and blue Knicks attire at home — switching into a less flamboyant two-piece suit Wednesday — while joining forces with an All-Star team of former New York Knicks greats in a bid to keep the World's Most Famous Arena from being moved to a new location.

Lee joined Madison Square Garden and its backers as they continued their fight yesterday to keep the iconic sports arena above Penn Station despite calls to move the facility to a new locale.

The city’s planning commission recommended last month that the City Council only extend a special permit for the Garden to operate there for 15 years. Supporters of the limited permit hope it would the first step in moving the Garden and upgrading the transit hub below.

“For me the Garden is being blamed for what’s happening underneath,” said Lee, the Knicks superfan, who testified at a City Council hearing where both sides made their cases. He was joined by Knicks greats John Starks, Walt Frazier and Earl Monroe.

Transit advocates have been pushing to evict the Garden to expand and improve Penn Station — an effort endorsed last month by the City Planning Commission, which voted to grant just a 15-year permit to the Garden.

Lee may have found his Reggie Miller in this dispute regarding his beloved Garden— City Council speaker and NYC mayoral-hopeful Christine Quinn.

Quinn had stayed out of the controversy for months but weighed in for the first time Wednesday, just as a Council committee prepared to consider the matter. She said she backs a 10-year permit so the city can fix “a dismal Penn Station that is dangerous (and) overcrowded.”

“Finding a new location for the Garden is likely the only way to address the ongoing capacity and safety issues at Penn Station,” she wrote in a letter to Garden President Hank Ratner.

Quinn’s opposition came despite the star-studded full-court press from Garden supporters.

The Council hasn’t yet set a date to vote on the venue’s future.

Patrick Ewing: If Only I Had a Carmelo...

Patrick Ewing claims current New York Knicks super-star Amar'e Stoudemire has an easier road to an NBA title than he did because none of his teammates were as good as Carmelo Anthony.

According to the New York Post, Ewing thinks he could have won a championship if former Knicks GM Ernie Grunfeld and Garden president Davis Checketts had brought in a better supporting cast.

The 11-time All-Star was asked who was the best player he ever played alongside with and Ewing replied," Second best teammate?  John Starks, Allan [Houston], Spree [Latrell Spreewell], Oak [Charles Oakley].  But they're not Carmelo"

While Ewing, an assistant coach with the Orlando Magic, may be endearing himself to the current Knicks team, it sounds like a jab at the former Knicks management for his brilliant, but NBA Championship-less career.  It sounds like he wrongly took the blame for the lack of an NBA title because he didn't have his own second fiddle.

Ewing is on the short list of Knicks head coaching prospects if current coach, Mike D'Antoni fails and believes the current Knicks brass is on the right track by bringing in an additional super-star like Anthony mid-way through the season to compliment Stoudemire--a perk he never had.

Yesterday, Ewing professed his admiration of Anthony before the Magic's 116-110 victory in Orlando.

"A great player. A great player," Ewing said.  "New York hasn't had two bona fide superstars since Willis [Reed] and Earl [Monroe] and Clyde [Frazier].  Those guys are two bona fide superstars."

The closest Ewing ever got to getting an NBA Championship ring was in 1994.  After battling center Hakeem Olajuwon and leading the Houston Rockets, 3-2, Ewing's second-banana, Starks, went ice-cold and shot 2-for-18 in game seven while the Knicks wilted away.  It still burns at Ewing.

"I can't worry about that now," said Ewing.  "I've been retired 100 years.  It feels like 100 years."

The Hall-of-Famer had a lot of good things to say about the third part of the Knicks Big-Three, Chauncey Billups.

"Everyone kept talking about him as a throw-in," Ewing said.  People overlooked him when he first started.  He's played great games. He's won championships."

While Ewing was surrounded by rugged lunch-buckets players like Starks and Oakley during his playing days, he now says he would have welcomed an offensive super-star player like Anthony and advises Stoudemire to count his blessings.

Ewing believes Stoudemire and 'Melo can co-exist in New York.  "They both have to share it, he stressed.  "You can't worry about it.  The city's big enough.  There's enough spotlight to go around."

That spotlight was always shining on Ewing during his 15 seasons at Madison Square Garden and it highlights his retired #33 jersey hanging from it's rafters.

Listening to him reminisce, it sounds like Ewing wishes he had someone to share the limelight with back then.