Results tagged “secretariatbuilding”

A woman appears to have fallen or jumped from a very high floor of the U.N. Secretariat Building at 405 East 42nd St. early today. Per wcbstv.com, U.N. security personnel escorted detectives and NYPD officers to the rear of the building, where the woman's body was splayed out on the lawn. She was quickly covered with a sheet and the area was cordoned with yellow tape. It's believed that the dead woman was an employee at the United Nations, although her identity has not been revealed.

The United Nations is finally moving ahead with plans to renovate its headquarters on Manhattan's East Side. The organization selected Swedish contractor Skanska AB to head up the preconstruction phase of the $1 billion project. Never known for being quick on its feet, a U.N. renovation project has been talked about since the mid-90s and is scheduled to take place in three phases over seven years, starting in early 2008.

There's a fun NY Times City section article about the Queens Museum of Art's Panorama Challenge. The Queens Museum of Art's panorama is a to-scale model of New York City: One inch equals 100 feet (the Empire State Building is 15 inches tall) and the model was originally designed for the 1964 World's Fair, as a "helicopter" ride over New York City. (And, yes, Parks Commissioner Robert Moses commissioned the panorama in 1964, just as he commissioned the Queens Museum of Art's building, the former New York City Pavilion for the 1939's World Fair.)

As part of the 60th anniversary celebration of the United Nations, the international organization is giving free tours on Sundays this month. Gothamist went to the UN this past Sunday for a tour which lasted all of 30 minutes. During the tour, which seems to be English only (the regular tour costs $11.50 for adults and is in multiple languages), the guides point out several murals and gifts to the UN and visitors are shown the Security Council (pictured above), the Trusteeship Council, and the General Assembly.

With the urgent need to renovate their asbestos-filled and cramped headquarters on the East River, the United Nations is considering a move to Brooklyn. Seriously. Over a year ago, the U.N. selected Fumihiko Maki to design their new temporary space on First Avenue, a "glassy, white and sheer but elegant building," but the NY State Senate rejected the plan, so the U.N. had to hunt again for space starting in 2007. There are reports that the U.N. was offered space at 7 World Trade Center, but Secretary General Kofi Annan said that various real estate analyses showed that the only available building space, in the range of 700,000 square feet, was in downtown Brooklyn. If this goes through, the implications will be wild, with more diplomatic car accidents (diplomats will need to be shuttled around).