Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the Inner City to Wall Street to the United Nations

At UN, Security Sweep for Monday, Dry Asbestos Friday Under Watchful Eyes

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 8 -- At the UN in New York it is a new era. The old landmark building is being gutted, gifts torn off walls and drilling for asbestos while some people have to continue working in the building. In the new low rise "Wal-Mart" building on the North Lawn, officials ambled Friday on raw concrete floors under the watchful panopticon eyes of security cameras.

  By Friday night, most of UN Security was in the North Lawn building. Inner City Press was told that contractor Skanska was ordered out, so that the "Secret Service could make a sweep." The question was, who would come to Ban Ki-moon's ribbon cutting on Monday?

  At Friday's noon briefing, the schedule but not invite list for Monday was disclosed. A South Asian correspondent demanded to know why the hedges on the route from the old building to the new are, he said, shaped like a Menorah.

  Spokesman Martin Nesirky quipped that the cold briefing room had suddenly grown warm. While some called it a newsless day, the UN's dissembling on Sri Lanka, and failure to protect civilians, were fodder for the Press.

  Up in the UN Staff Union, there was planning against Ban Ki-moon's "fake" celebration of the new building on Monday. The Union questions why Ban has left, as a rat leaves a sinking ship, leaving lower level staff to live for months with asbestos. A letter prepared for distribution at Monday's Town Hall meeting says Ban should have remained, and been a leader by example.

UN's Ban smiles in new space, asbestos, tears and leadership not shown

   With the high ceilinged Delegates Lounge empty -- no bar service, no chairs, just contractor Skanska's blue prints spread out on cheap card tables -- Inner City Press headed Friday at dusk to the relocated Cafe Austria. Before it closed at six, a bottle of beer could be bought for $3.70. High ranking UN officials stopped and chatted, looking warily at the security cameras. By seven p.m. it was dead.

  A long standing UN official, from the developing world, predicted that this ostensibly temporary building will never be torn down. The UN pays rent to have staff in the Daily News building and elsewhere. If and when the rehab of the landmark is completed, there will be pressure to move those staff to the Lawn.

  Back in the old building, a cleaning contractor in a blue smock, a 28 year veteran, told Inner City Press that she "cries every night." She pointed at empty walls, where painting had been torn off. An African sculpture, a gift from Nigeria, remained, tall and thin and lonely. Perhaps it could not be returned to Lagos, given the new flight restrictions.

  UN party people known to Inner City Press asked when and where the Lounge would re-open. In the interim they invited the Press to a Delegates Lounge in exile, out on Lexington. But would it be the same?

  In the lobby of the landmark, a high placed bureaucrat wept. Her purse had been locked into her office. She was not allowed to return, because Skanska would drill for asbestos over the weekend. She said that Security was all over in the North Lawn buildling. What she didn't know, but the Press later found out, is that Skanska was ordered out of the North Lawn. She asked Inner City Press, why are we still here? Why indeed. Watch this site.

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