UNITED NATIONS, May 26 -- As the UN surrounds its iconic skyscraper with a blue plywood construction fence, inside a battle is brewing. The UN Staff Union, with its longtime offices on the fifth floor, has yet to be moved out. Capital Master Plan chieftain Michael Adlerstein ordered them to leave on May 21 and again on May 24, but they did not. He rejected their reasons, and has commanded that they will move, like it or not.
A visit to the fifth floor on May 26 found moving boxes sitting empty. Construction workers with hardhats passed through the hall, from working out on the roof. Staff Union officials described their back and forth with Adlerstein's envoy Ken Champion, who they say was reasonable.
But finally, when they asked how their staffer would be put in harm's way, Champion returned to say that Adlerstein said no, it didn't matter, they would move. He argued that they are costing the UN money, to continue services to the floor.
The elevators to the 5th floor still works, but will not stop at 3, 4, 6, 8-12, 14 and 15. The information technology workers further upstairs will remain for the foreseeable future, until their functions can be "migrated" to the basement of the new North Lawn building. Great planning.
Meanwhile, in the wake of Inner City Press' report that the Capital Master Plan's lease on the Albano "swing space" building on 46th Street runs for a full ten years, the CMP has declined to disclose the length of the UN's lease of the 42nd Street "Innovation Luggage" building.
CMP's genial spokesman says this is because it was the UN "Facilities Management Service" that rented the Luggage Building, and not the CMP. Why?
Inner City Press is told by a well placed UN official that the CMP was only authorized to lease a certain number of square feet of swing space. Due to bad planning, much more is necessary. And so the additional lease is run through FMS. But how? Where does this money suddenly appear (and disappear) from? Watch this site.
