Schumer Says U.N. Building Is a Danger

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The deteriorating condition of the United Nations headquarters should be a source of concern for firefighters and Turtle Bay residents who might be exposed to asbestos in the event of an emergency at the U.N., Senator Schumer said.

At a news conference yesterday, Mr. Schumer pledged to ask Secretary-General Annan and America’s U.N.ambassador, John Bolton, to focus their attention on guiding to completion a plan to renovate the U.N.’s landmark building. The plan will cost an estimated $1.9 billion.

Mr. Schumer said yesterday that the long-considered renovation is an “American issue, but particularly a New York issue.”

The U.N.’s campus was built more than 50 years ago. It does not comply with many city fire codes and lacks an internal sprinkler system, Mr. Schumer said.

“If this were owned by a private company there would be so many violations the government could close it down,” Mr. Schumer said at the news conference, which took place in front of the U.N. yesterday.

Mr. Schumer said the U.N. complex posed several dangers to New Yorkers. He said the plaza where fire trucks would likely park following an emergency could collapse under their weight into the underground parking lot beneath.

“While the blue-green windows of the Secretariat building glisten on the outside every day, on the inside the building is crumbling,” he said. “The U.N.’s grave state of disrepair may be hidden, but it is putting the health and safety of thousands of New Yorkers in great danger.”

Mr. Schumer is not the first to cite the physical dangers that the building poses to Manhattanites. Yesterday he repeated a warning that a U.N. undersecretary-general voiced during a Senate subcommittee hearing in July 2005. The undersecretary-general, Christopher Burnham, said that if one of the steam pipes in the building were to blow the nearby area could be contaminated by asbestos, according to a transcript of the meeting.

U.N. efforts to go forward with the renovations suffered a serious setback in May when the project head, Louis Frederic Reuter, quit his post. In June, the investigative office of Congress, the Government Accountability Office, released a report that cast doubts on whether the U.N.’s internal watchdogs were capable of ensuring that the renovations were accomplished without waste.


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