David Rubin, whose family has had season tickets since the Blazers' second season in 1971, said he would usually spend opening night with his brother, meeting him downtown, where they would park their cars and eat dinner before taking the light rail to the arena.
There were delays on some Long Island Rail Road trains, Mr. Arena said.
In New Jersey, there is the promise, still, of a rail line to the arena as well as the development of the Xanadu entertainment complex.
He wants to move the Nets to a $435 million, 19,000-seat glass-walled arena over Long Island Rail Road yards.
(Construction has started on temporary rail yards around the new arena, which will be called the Barclays Center).
Mr. Gottesman said he hoped that an old unused railroad bridge, which is over the main Amtrak lines, can be redeveloped as a pedestrian access from the rail station to the sports arena.
For the first time since 1999, when Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's dream of a West Side Yankee stadium died at the feet of Gov. George E. Pataki, the prospects for a sports arena built over the rail yards appear better than ever.
Wearing beige silk shorts and a white cotton cap stitched with the logo of the Myopia Hunt Club, Mrs. Guest leaned over a rail and waved toward a training arena where riders were conducting their mounts over four-foot "schooling" fences.
There is a nearly nonstop frenzy of construction around the planned stops for the rail lines and at the soccer arena, which is in the nearby port city of Piraeus.
That anger at the Clintons came through clearly in the arena yesterday as Kennedy railed against the cynicism and hard-elbowed style of traditional politics.
