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Dusty “debris” spewing from a Madison Square Garden ceiling shut down the Knicks yesterday even faster than the Orlando Magic’s defense.
Wimpy Garden bosses — describing the material as “asbestos-related” — canceled last night’s game with Orlando even after city officials insisted the arena was perfectly safe.
“It’s much ado about nothing . . . There is no health risk,” said Farrell Sklerov, spokesman for the city Department of Environmental Protection.
The Garden, describing the falling particles only as “debris,” refused to say how much of it fell, what it was made up of, or how big the individual pieces were.
But they drifted down from an attic above a partly-open ceiling that was being cleaned.
A Garden employee who wouldn’t give his name said that, judging by how long it was taking to clean up the material, “it must be a lot.”
“They got 50 percent out of the arena bowl,” the worker said last night. “The rest of it will be gone by Friday.”
The Garden brought in two environmental safety consulting companies, which set up 24 air-monitoring stations.
Two of them in a seating area “triggered a slightly elevated reading,” Sklerov said.
So another test was ordered, “which can differentiate between asbestos fibers and non-asbestos fibers,” he said.
The result: “Further sampling . . . indicated that no asbestos was released.”
But still, everyone was told to stay away.
“You can’t breathe that stuff in,” said someone leaving the building.
“As the safety of our customers and employees are our top priority, we will not reopen the Garden until we are absolutely assured the arena is safe,” the Garden said in a statement.
If you had tickets to last night’s game, hang onto them — the Knicks say they’ll soon post rescheduling information on the team’s Web site.
The next home game is scheduled for Friday.
It was unclear yesterday whether the mini-crisis would affect other Garden events in the next few days, including a Rangers game Sunday night and concerts next week by Roger Waters and the Dave Matthews Band.