Mayor Bloomberg had his highest profile day of the Republican National Convention yesterday, citing such Republican heroes as Abraham Lincoln and Jackie Robinson in a welcoming address to delegates from the podium at center stage.

Mr. Bloomberg, who had been a lifelong Democrat until he became a Republican to avoid a Democratic primary for mayor three years ago, focused his remarks on the city instead of the presidential candidate delegates had come to nominate. He thanked delegates and the president for supporting New York in its time of need and assured them that the city was on the upswing.

“New York City is back,” Mr. Bloomberg told a thin crowd in a late-morning time slot on the podium. “Our economy is growing, our neighborhoods are humming, our streets are bustling. Our schools are reviving. Our streets are cleaner. Our quality of life is better. And our future is brighter than ever.”

If the message seemed more directed at New Yorkers than delegates from across the country, there is a reason why: Mr. Bloomberg is up for re-election next year and he will have to woo voters in a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans five-to-one.

He has spent months trying to convince New Yorkers that the convention is not about politics, but about injecting $265 million into the city’s economy during a historically dog day-filled week in August. That message continued yesterday as he called on delegates to “take it all in” and visit museums, Broadway, and the more than 18,000 restaurants in all five boroughs.

And it was no accident that he told delegates his favorite thing to do in the city was take a ferry ride to Staten Island – a Republican bastion he barely carried in 2001. “Out there in the harbor, you’ll glide past the Statue of Liberty, the beacon of freedom that America holds out to people everywhere,” he said. “It is guaranteed to bring a lump to your throat.”

He is having to walk a delicate line. While he makes Republicans feel welcome he has to avoid alienating New York City Democrats in 2005. Mr. Bloomberg was introduced yesterday by a Democrat, Mayor Koch.

Mr. Bloomberg’s critics, Democrats who are positioning themselves to run against him next year, took the opportunity yesterday to tar him with a Republican brush. They criticized Mr. Bloomberg for not holding the Bush administration’s feet to the fire on federal monies for New York.

“It’s not what Mayor Bloomberg said this morning, it’s what he didn’t say,” said City Council Speaker Gifford Miller, a Democrat. “The mayor missed a historic opportunity to look all his fellow Republicans in the eye and tell them New York City is being shortchanged by the Bush-Cheney team on everything from terrorism to schools to Medicaid to subways.”

Rep. Anthony Weiner, another likely mayoral contender, said Mr. Bloomberg “failed New York” because he did not ask the Bush administration for more homeland security, education, and transportation money.

Mr. Bloomberg did mention the homeland security funding issue. He thanked President Bush for supporting New York City by changing the homeland security funding formula so it was based on risk instead of population. “We are here to support him. I am here to support him,” Mr. Bloomberg told delegates yesterday to raucous applause.

“We all must recognize that Homeland Security funds should be allocated by threat and no other reason. I will repeat this message to my fellow Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, as many times as it takes, so we can keep New York safe and secure,” Mr. Bloomberg said.

Mr. Bloomberg’s speech also invoked a Republican who is popular even among many Democrats – Abraham Lincoln. Mr. Bloomberg said that framed on a wall of his home is a flag that New York Republicans carried when they nominated Lincoln for the presidency in 1860.

Mr. Bloomberg’s day on the national stage would have gone off without a hitch had it not been for one verbal gaffe. On a day when the convention is focusing on the September 11 attacks and the president’s battle against terrorism, the mayor managed to evoke death instead of hope.

“Governor Pataki and I laid the tombstone for the Freedom Tower at the site of the World Trade Center,” Mr. Bloomberg told delegates. “The terrorists hit us there. Our knees buckled. But we stayed on our feet.”

What he and Governor Pataki laid at ground zero was the cornerstone, not the tombstone, of the new Freedom Tower.

“He misread it off the teleprompter,” Mr. Bloomberg’s press secretary, Ed Skyler, explained.

Fortunately for Mr. Bloomberg, the only people who seemed to pick up on his malapropism were reporters. Delegates in the hall like Darlene Anene, from League City, Texas, said they didn’t notice the mistake. “What is important is that he has welcomed us here, he’s been a great host,” she said magnanimously. “It doesn’t matter if he made a small mistake. I thought it was a great speech.”

Delegates began arriving in New York over the weekend and so far their convention has unfolded with few if any problems.

One couple from Amarillo, Texas, complained about protesters jeering at them in Times Square on Sunday night. “They said we were a bunch of damned Republicans,” one Texas couple said as they waited to go shopping with Mr. Bloomberg at Macy’s yesterday afternoon.

“We had some of that, too,” said Dennis Booth, an Arizona delegate also waiting to go to Macy’s. “But we don’t think that they were New Yorkers, we think they were visitors.”

His wife, Anne, nodded in agreement. “New Yorkers have been as sweet as they can be while we have been here. We told the protesters we don’t care what they say, we intend to come back.”

That is what Mr. Bloomberg is counting on when he speaks of the convention’s economic boost to the city.