At a Midtown press conference yesterday, the Reverend Billy Graham announced that this weekend’s “crusade” at Flushing Meadows Corona Park will be his “last in America, I am sure.”

Three meetings are scheduled, on Friday and Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoon. Organizers expect thousands to attend the gatherings. Meeting with a throng of reporters at Radio City’s Rainbow Room, the octogenarian evangelist said he does not fear death.

“I look forward to dying with great anticipation,” Rev. Graham said, after speaking of a litany of illnesses that have afflicted him in recent years, including prostate cancer, Parkinson’s disease, and hydrocephaly.

“I will be 87 this November,” he said. “I know that my days of preaching must soon be over.”

Rev. Graham said he decided to return to New York in part because of the September 11, 2001, attacks, and in part because of social problems.

“New York City isn’t only a cross section of the world’s population. It is also a cross-section of the world’s problems,” he said. “The Gospel of Christ is the answer – not part of the answer, but the whole answer.” While praising President Bush for committing “$40 billion” in aid to Africa, Rev. Graham said his message was nonpolitical. He brushed aside questions “on subjects that 20 years ago I might have answered.”

“I pray for New York,” Rev. Graham said. “I’ve been praying for New York since my 20s.”

Stooped now and reliant on a walker, with a shock of white hair, Rev. Graham spoke in a voice that was only a raspy remnant of the days when he first held New York in thrall. For 16 weeks in 1957, he filled Madison Square Garden nightly and urged his listeners to accept Jesus as their savior. Total attendance exceeded 2 million. He preached in the city several more times over the years, the last in 1991, when he drew a crowd estimated at a 250,000 to Central Park.

At the press conference, Rev. Graham held out hope he might have one last crusade in him, later this year in London. He said he would wait to decide until after this crusade is over. The current Greater New York Billy Graham Crusade is his 417th, his organization said.

Rev. Graham spoke of recently undergoing brain surgery and said he was looking forward to meeting God in heaven. “I hope to meet all of you there, and bring your camera,” he said. “I’ll have one.” In response to a journalist’s question, he said his favorite prayer is “Lord, help me.”

Volunteers from about 1,300 metropolitan-area churches have been preparing for the crusade for months. In addition to Mr. Graham’s preaching, the stage will feature a variety of music-