Residents at Turtle Bay Object to U.N. Plans, Want Replacement for Area Park

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The New York Sun

For residents of Turtle Bay who have weathered the slings and arrows of snarled traffic and heightened security near the headquarters of the United Nations, opposition to the world body’s recently proposed expansion all boils down to a fenced-in slab of asphalt.


The United Nations wants to renovate its 52-year-old Turtle Bay building and erect a 35-story companion structure next door. To do that, developers would encroach on Robert Moses Park, a small space where neighborhood residents can play baseball and rollerhockey, or just rest on park benches.


The new building would allow for temporary relocation of offices during renovation of the Secretariat building, and then be used to consolidate U.N. offices now located throughout Manhattan. Last week, some state senators cried foul and blocked a bill that would have permitted the U.N. to start planning the project. One of the senators, Martin Golden, a Republican of Brooklyn, objected to the city’s wanting to do anything for the world body in the wake of scandals involving corruption and the oil-for-food program.


Community leaders, such as the vice president of the Turtle Bay Association, Bruce Silberblatt, see the delay in Albany as an opening to make sure the neighborhood gets its due. “We’re not against the expansion per se, but we want mitigation for the expansion,” he told The New York Sun. “Simply put, we want a replacement for the Robert Moses Park before the U.N. so much as puts a shovel in the ground.”


Mr. Silberblatt said the plan, as currently envisioned, would put a new office tower with roughly the same floor area as Trump Tower on the grounds of the small park.


The U.N. has offered to replace the park with a waterfront esplanade near 41st Street and has also offered to build some decking over FDR Drive, but Mr. Silberblatt, who follows matters of planning and zoning for the Turtle Bay Association, said it is unclear where the money to do that would come from, and whether the U.N. could be held to that promise.


Before anything is approved, Mr. Silberblatt wants the U.N. and the city to agree to a replacement park, and he wants it to be built before Robert Moses is razed. “The esplanade is a nice idea, but how do you play baseball or hockey on an esplanade?” he said. “We want them to build us a park, and they can do that on the parking lot over at the Con Ed building. It is just a block away, is roughly the same size, and it would be easily done.”


The president and CEO of the United Nations Development Corporation, Roy Goodman, a Republican who represented the neighborhood in the state Senate until 2002, said residents are exaggerating the effects of the expansion plan.


Robert Moses Park is “used by middle-aged men for roller-hockey on rare occasion,” Mr. Goodman said, adding the esplanade would provide more space and “two fields of green grass” for residents. He said the new plan would be a “great deal for the community” and a “lovely amenity for the whole East Side.”


Mr. Silberblatt’s skepticism is shared by New Yorkers interviewed in Robert Moses Park yesterday. “I’m definitely against it,” said one resident of Tudor City Place across from the U.N., Roberta Kaye. “I’m vehemently against it, and so many people in the neighborhood are. We have enough disturbances with every other U.N. meeting, and rally, and everyone else who feels it’s their right to demonstrate in the neighborhood. I’m just afraid they’re going to wind up getting eminent domain and able to just go ahead.”


Mr. Silberblatt said he has had numerous conversations with officials of the Bloomberg administration, including Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff. He said, however, that the city officials have been so focused on the West Side stadium project and winning the 2012 Olympics that they haven’t been much help on the U.N. expansion plan. They want it to go ahead, he said, because the United Nations pumps $2.5 billion into the local economy each year.


A spokesman for the city’s Economic Development Corporation, Michael Sherman, said yesterday that Mr. Doctoroff “has been very involved and kept apprised of every facet of this project.” Mr. Sherman said the agency has been working closely with the lo cal community board “to arrive at a plan that satisfies the needs of both the community and the U.N.”


Members of the City Council likewise appear to be lining up to support the plan.”The U.N. needs to stay in the capital of the world,” said a spokesman for Council Speaker Gifford Miller, Stephen Sigmund. “We want them to stay in New York, and I am sure they can find some way to agree and get a playground so this can go ahead.”


The council member whose district encompasses Turtle Bay, Eva Moskowitz, said there was still plenty of time to work out a solution that would make both the United Nations and the community happy. “In my opinion, the way to really do this would be to do real urban planning and to have the Con Ed site and the U.N. problems be figured out in conjunction with one another,” she said. “We’re a long way from this being a done deal.”


A former U.N. employee who lives in Turtle Bay, Jacqueline Lenestour, said the world body should find somewhere else to expand. “The U.N. has offices all over the city, why do they need another office here?” she asked.


The New York Sun

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