Continuation of the story: But they said have had high hopes for the event, titled "One Night Only," which was to be Mr. Jackson's frist in New York in eight years. For that matter, Mr. Jackson himself could have a lot at stake. His latest album, "HIStory," has languished on the charts, ranking No. 55 after 24 weeks, according to Soundscan, a company that monitors retail sales of recorded music. If the HBO concert were a success, Mr. Jackson would no doubt hope for a carry-over effect on his album sales. Kevin Barwick, an E.M.S. technician who went to the theater after the singer collapsed, said, "We treated him as if he was anybody else." He and a fellow technician, La-Shunn Knight, said the entertainer was lying on his side, clad in jeans and a T-shirt and looking lethargic. David Bookstaver, an E.M.S. spokesman, said the ambulance was planning to taker Mr. Jackson to St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, but at the request of Mr. Jackson' entourage, took him to the Upper East Side hospital. Patients are allowed to choose their destination if the trip would require 10 minutes or less travel time than for E.M.S.'s preferred location. Colin Carew, dancer not associated With the show, said colleagues participating in the production a the Beacon had told him that Mr. Jackson seemed exhausted from rehealsals. "They said he was rehearsing and he collapsed", Mr. Carew said. "He's been rehearsing since his this morning. They asked him if he wanted to take a break, and he had said ni". Linda wolff, the owner of Joe's Boutque, a store next to the theater said she had picked up the souds of Mr. Jackson's rehearsals all week through the walls. Just before his collapse yesterday, she said, "He was doing he his song, 'Black or white', and then it just stopped." Mr. Jackson's on-stage idiosyncrasies have included a white glove. Off stage, fans said they had seen him wearing a surgical mask recently while taking the short trek from his tailre to a side entrance to the theater. Heaters had even been placed along the path between the stage door and his tailer, a theater guard told students at the nearby American Musicl and Drematic Academy.
The guard said no one wanted Mr. Jackson to catch a cold. News of his illness brought a crowd of onlookers -- fans, journalists, the merely curious -- to the teather. Several police cars soon arrived to keep order while the E.M.S. workers were inside. In November 1993, Mr. Jackson canceled a concert tour after admitting he had become addicted to prescription painkillers -- an addiction that he said crew from his anguish over claims that he had molested a 13-year old boy. He has denide the accusations; a civil case arising from them was settled out of court. The painkillers had been prescribed for Mr. Jackson after reconstructive sclap surgery. His head was badly burned in January 1984 by an explosion during the filming of a soft-drink television commercial.