Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the Inner City to Wall Street to the United Nations

At UN, Spooky Routes Through Garages & Dark Halls, Evictions and Monitors Missing

UNITED NATIONS, June 1 -- The UN's emptied building was spooky and some day dangerous during Memorial Day's emergency Security Council meetings about the assault on the flotilla to Gaza. In the UN's lobby, a crude plywood fence has been erected. It was supposed to block pedestrian traffic from May 29 onward. But due to bad planning various UN functions have not moved out of the building.

  By June 1 the door through the plywood fence was still open. Despite signs saying that hardhats and protective gear against asbestos were required, UN staff whose offices had not been moved walked through the dark corridor. "This is crazy," one of them told Inner City Press. "Is a hardhat supposed to keep me from breathing asbestos?"

  Meanwhile journalists were told to access the Security Council from their Whistleblower Free Zone over the library by walking through the garage. One television producer said, this can't be safe, and planned a video expose. The UN is proposing a new set of guidelines to further restrict access to the media, the producer complained: "this is Ban Ki-moon's UN."

The new "normal" way from the Press pen to the Security Council involves going outside near the Spokesperson's Office, by the river and up to the General Assembly, through the basement to to the Security Council. But on June 1 the electronic turnstiles set to go into use that day weren't assembled and weren't ready. Of the two old elevators to the Press (and Management) floors above the library, one is broken.

The UN Staff Union, having been threatened with eviction by Capital Master Plan chief Michael Adlerstein, had their phones cut off on May 28. When they arrived for work on June 2, the offices in the Secretariat Building were empty, they say. But their equipment and furniture had not shown up in the Alcoa Building either, having been stored on a truck all weekend. CMP means Can't Manage Planning, they say. But now whole floors of the empties Secretariat Building are being used for storage, or for contractor Skanska or its consultants.

At UN, during cleaner moving times: spooky halls not shown

Inner City Press asked the UN Spokesperson's Office a few questions and got these answers:

Inner City Press: What happened with the video monitors which were installed outside the conference rooms in the Conference Building which used to show the meeting schedules.? Will they be reused, or were they sold, or thrown away?? Where are they now, and who is responsible for their custody?

UN answer: The video monitors were removed by the Broadcast and Conference Support Section (BCSS), on behalf of the Department of General Assembly and Conference Management (DGACM), in coordination with the Capital Master Plan. The monitors are in the Facilities Management Service, BCSS Store and will be reused wherever practical.

Inner City Press: Speaking of video monitors, there is a monitor in front of the cafeteria which until last week only showed pages from a French news/TV site.? An image of Sarkozy visiting Afghanistan in February was frozen on that monitor for?some time.? Was that monitor donated by France on condition that it only show images of Sarkozy?? Why is it dark now?? Who is responsible for programming that monitor's content?

UN Answer: The monitor was provided by the TV5 Monde, in coordination and with full support of the Department of Public Information. The monitor is to display news and informational programming broadcast by TV5 Monde and delivered to the UN over the internet. Recently we have had some technical issues which we are working to resolve and hope there will be a full resumption of service in the near future.

We'll see. Watch this site.