UNITED
NATIONS, April
12 -- The
reopening of
UN
Headquarters
after its $2
billion
renovation has
been halting.
Today we run a
review, one in
a
series, of the
refurbished
Delegates
Lounge, and of
the Conference
Building.
In
the past, the
Delegates
Lounge had
a big wooden
bar, and a
second
floor loft
serving
coffee. Now,
the loft is
gone, and so
is the
wooden bar,
replaced by
one of black
stone. Inner
City Press photo
here.
Inner
City Press on
Friday asked
Capital Master
Plan chief
Michael
Adlerstein
where the
wooden bar has
gone. He said
he'd look into
it,
and let it be
known that the
designer of
the new
Delegates
Lounge was
none other
than noted
Dutch
architect Rem
Koolhaas.
“I'm
giving you a
scoop,” said
Adlerstein,
with whom
Inner City
Press
has at times
locked horns.
“You owe me
one.”
In
that spirit,
we don't focus
here on the
missing wooden
bar. The
computers in
the Lounge are
now covered
with plastic
half-spheres,
like in a
women's beauty
parlor. Photo
here.
The
chairs are on
wheels; there
are
spindly
rocking chairs
reminiscent
for those
who've been
there to
those in the
airport in
Charlotte,
North
Carolina. Photo
here.
Adlerstein
explained
the layout as
based on Dutch
berms around
fields. An
Inner
City Press
reader, seeing
the Tweeted
photo,
chimed in that
the
“chartreuse
tables
actually look
like my kids'
elementary
schools.
They still
have 1960s
Soviet
liberation
art, I guess.”
Actually
the
art remains
the same: the
carpet or wall
hanging of the
Great
Wall of China
is back,
returned from
its sojourn in
the UN's North
Lawn building.
That is
largely vacant
now, though
Inner City
Press is
aware of some
trying to get
offices there,
even now.
This
weekend, both
the UN
Spokesperson's
Office and the
Media
Accreditation
and Liaison
Unit are
moving to the
second floor
of the
renovated
building. The
press corps,
meanwhile, for
reasons still
not
sufficiently
explained,
will remain in
cubicle above
the Dag
Hammarskjold
Library, the
whistleblower-free
zone.
It
was supposedly
to explain the
delay in
moving that
MALU came into
and
then raided
Inner City
Press' cubicle
office on
March 18,
rifling
through papers
and taking
photographs
which were
later, right
after
the
Spokesperson
was asked by
BuzzFeed about
that raid,
leaked to the
BuzzFeed
reporter
through an
anonymous
“Concerned UN
Reporter”
email address.
MALU
and the UN
Department of
Public
Information
above it have
refused to
state the
identities of
those it
allowed into
Inner City
Press'
office without
notice or
consent, why
the president
of the UN
Correspondents
Association
Pamela Falk of
CBS News was
taking
pictures, and
how the photos
were leaked to
BuzzFeed.
Nor
has the
explanation of
the delayed
move, the
ostensible
reason for
the March 18
entry without
notice or
consent, ever
been provided.
Watch this
site.
Footnote:
two
floors below
the Delegates
Lounge, the
Conference
Rooms are
already in
use. The rooms
now have
card-key
entrance, to
log in every
attendee (and
those playing
hooky).
Notably,
while there
used to be
long brown
leather
couches by the
rooms, there's
now no seating
in
the halls at
all. This
is diplomacy?
, 
