Bloomberg at Foggy Bottom
That was an illuminating soliloquy that Mayor Bloomberg gave the press in Washington before ducking over to Foggy Bottom to meet with Secretary Rice. The mayor was asked what he was hoping for in terms of the United Nations. Responded the mayor: "The United Nations is very important to New York City because of its implication in the economy." He then proceeded to tick off the areas in which it is allegedly "a major generator of jobs" in the city, from stores and restaurants to transportation and construction. He added that for the city "to lose the United Nations would be a disaster."
Well, for the record, a lot of New Yorkers disagree with the mayor's assessment. They see the disaster as the United Nations itself, along with its capital master plan, which is fermenting daily. If there is an upside to the mayor's visit with Secretary Rice, it's the potential to help real-estate interests whose ambitions have little to do with international diplomacy and everything to do with money. For at the moment, the United Nations is occupying, in addition to the iconic tower of the secretariat and dome of the General Assembly, a huge complex at First Avenue and 45th Street, where it is paying a relatively low rent.
What worries the real-estate moguls is not that the United Nations might leave this complex of buildings — but that it might stay. They want the United Nations out of the west side of First Avenue so that they can put the space to more profitable use — condominiums, say, or other private sector purposes. For a while, there was a plan to build what is called "swing space" on a park just south of the world body's main buildings. The idea would have been for the United Nations to occupy temporarily an office tower to be built on the park, and once the main U.N. buildings were renovated, to be used to free up the space on First Avenue and 45th Street so it could be put to more profitable uses.
That whole U.N. scheme faced questions in the Congress, where guardians of the public fisc were appalled at the contemplated cost to taxpayers or, in some cases, the idea of taxpayers being forced to subsize any of the borrowing that would be needed to undertake a project of the luxury to which the United Nations is accustomed. The "swing space" scheme was blocked in the New York State Legislature, thanks in part to Senator Martin Golden. Eventually, the United Nations began exploring other solutions to its problems, including the possibility of setting up a temporary building within its own compound. It no longer wants to take Robert Moses Park for "swing space."
So just to get the problem straight, what is vexing the real-estate community is not that we might lose a United Nations that is good for business. It is that the United Nations, which involves a state intervention in our economy, is actually bad for business. The far better approach than continued subsidies and discount lending to keep the United Nations in Manhattan would be for the world body to move elsewhere — to Queens or Brooklyn or, even better, out of New York entirely (our favorite site is the former West German capital, Bonn, where there's lots of excess space). Then the space on the East River could be opened to market forces entirely, and we could see what developers would come in. Private enterprise also has employees, after all, who would, like diplomats (to mark the mayor's points), eat at restaurants and use transportation.
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In addition to the financial benefits that would accrue to New York were the United Nations to be moved out of the city, there is the political — or even moral — dimension to the question, on which the mayor, in his remarks in Washington yesterday, gave a little homily as well. "From America's and the world's point of view, I don't agree with a lot of the things that are said in the United Nations," he said. "But it's kind of hard to argue, I think, that talking — it may not bring you anything, but I don't see any downside. And just maybe, every once in a while, people looking each other in the eye and talking will come up with some ways to make the world a safer, better place."
"I don't see any downside" isn't the greatest sales pitch for an institution into which the Congress is sinking hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. Last week the new secretary-general, Ban Ki-Moon, did break with U.N. group-think and took the side of America and Israel in a dispute. It involved the latest fracas to erupt on the border between Lebanon and the Jewish state. Our Benny Avni had details in the Sun on Friday. Over the weekend, Mr. Ban was at a dinner at the home of the president of the American Jewish Congress, Jack Rosen, along with a number of serious figures in the new Democratic majority in the House. Mr. Avni, the one newspaperman present, filed a report that was guardedly encouraging — not only in respect of Mr. Ban but also of the congressmen. Congressman Rangel, a Korean War veteran, was particularly impressive, telling Mr. Ban: "I've been to parts of Korea that you've never seen." New York, however, is still a long way from concluding that the United Nations is worth more to the city or to America than it costs — either financially or politically.
