Mandela Receives Hero’s Welcome on Arrival in N.Y.

Nelson Mandela took New York City by storm today, riding up Broadway in a bulletproof glass “greenhouse” as a sea of confetti rained down and hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers cheered and shouted, “Keep the pressure up!”

The extraordinary outpouring of goodwill delighted the 71-year-old Mandela, who arrived weary and reportedly feeling faint from an exhausting world tour aimed at keeping up the pressure on white-ruled South Africa to end apartheid.

The South African black nationalist leader declared that he knew he had friends in New York but never dreamed he was so loved. His weariness seemed to melt away amid the cheers.

Mandela arrived with a message of hope. In prison for 27 years until February and still unable to vote in his own country, the deputy president of the African National Congress declared that he can now see “light at the end of the tunnel” for an end to apartheid.

The ethnic mosaic of New York paraded in front of him as he made his way up Manhattan’s “Canyon of Heroes”--the traditional parade route for a hero’s welcome here--in the “Mandelamobile” specially designed to protect him.

Set on a blue flatbed truck it looked like a greenhouse or even a picture-windowed guardhouse. It was a far cry from the open car used in past ticker-tape parades by such figures as aviation pioneer Charles A. Lindbergh and the astronauts who went to the moon and a clear sign of the nervousness of a security-conscious era.

A 30-foot-long papier-mache Chinese dragon snaked its way up lower Broadway to welcome Mandela, followed by Irish bagpipers, American Indian dancers, South Korean drummers, Kurdish dancers, Formosans, Jews, Arabs, Italians, Ethiopians, African-Americans and Polish marchers to name a few.

Crowds were 10 and 12 deep on the sidewalks. The cheering was non-stop. A sea of confetti, ticker tape, streamers and even toilet rolls rained down on the parade. Some of the signs used to hail Mandela were clearly used before. On the back of one sign denouncing apartheid was a demand that Britain leave Northern Ireland.

It was a day for vendors selling buttons with Mandela’s photograph, his name and his cause. “Free Man--Nelson Mandela” and “Free at Last” were but two available.

The crowd was joyous and unrestrained in its enthusiasm. Mandela waved and flashed a broad, open smile as he sat next to his wife, Winnie, and New York State Gov. Mario M. Cuomo and New York Mayor David N. Dinkins, the city’s first black mayor.

People perched on the tops of skycrapers and in windows for a glimpse of the extraordinary scene. There was so much confetti thrown that it looked as if New York had a snowstorm in June.