NEW YORK - As the United Nations brings down its shutters in early 2009 and closes shop for the next five years, will all its institutional memories die when a revamped, ultra-modern building is re-opened in 2013? Hopefully, not.
Perhaps one of the most memorable incidents in the history of the General Assembly is when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev is said to have banged his shoe on his desk to denounce a Filipino delegate who accused the Soviet Union of "swallowing up" Eastern Europe and deprived it of civil and political rights.
Khrushchev apparently reacted angrily to the statement in the General Assembly hall and described the Filipino as "a jerk, a stooge and a lackey of imperialism." But as some old UN hands recall, there is still a lingering dispute whether or not Khrushchev really banged his shoe that memorable day in October 1960.
Or as some contend, Khrushchev only removed his shoe and brandished it at the Filipino delegate. There is at least one staffer who has claimed, seriously or jokingly, that he noticed a hole in the heel of Khrushchev's slip-on which was badly in need of repairs.
 |
| UN headquarters in New York: Set for a major revamp |
But others say the rumour about the wasted shoe leather was perhaps part of the ongoing insidious Western propaganda to humiliate the Soviets during the height of the Cold War.
Still, come 2009, the desk on which the shoe landed (or didn't land -- depending on who recounts the story) will either be replaced or refurbished as the 39-storeyed Secretariat building, the General Assembly hall, the Security Council chamber and all meeting rooms, will undergo a five-year, $1.9 billion renovation.
The entire building is to be gutted and restored with an infrastructure that will be "contemporary, safe, efficient and environmentally sound." The renovation is part of an ambitious project called the Capital Master Plan (CMP) aimed at modernizing the 58-year-old building which was constructed in 1949-1950.
The entire Secretariat building will be emptied early next year as the 4,000 odd staffers will be relocated to rented offices in the UN neighborhood. The General Assembly, the Security Council and the Secretary-General's office will, however, be housed in temporary buildings in the North Lawn within UN precincts.
Asked where the press (which has been provided with rent-free offices in the Secretariat building from time immemorial) will be re-located, a UN spokesman said: "The UN correspondents will remain where the action is: within the UN premises itself". Score one for the media.
All correspondents will be afforded the privilege of continued housing in UN precincts as their offices will be relocated to the adjoining Dag Hammarskjold Library building which is an extension of the Secretariat (but not an integral part of the renovation process).
As historians recount, the current UN neighbourhood was once dotted with stockyards, breweries, tanneries and abattoirs. The site of the UN building, in fact, was home to a onetime slaughter house where cows, cattle, goats and bulls were marched daily for slaughtering.
When China entered the UN back in 1971, one New York newspaper ran a cartoon which said, rather sarcastically, that instead of a bull running wild in a proverbial china shop, China was expected to run wild in a "bull shop." And that was the era when the American mainstream media always referred to China as "red" China evoking images of totalitarianism under Communist rule.
The UN's 18-acre site was a gift from US philanthropist John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who donated $8.5 million of his own money to pay for the land and ensure the construction of the building in the city.
The land values in the neighbourhood were at their lowest at that time primarily because of the foul smelling odours from the tanneries and slaughter houses. But rumour has it that Rockefeller also owned other huge properties in the neighborhood.
So, no sooner the UN building came up in a habitable environment, property values skyrocketed. Score one for the Rockefellers.
The Secretariat building, whose streets have witnessed endless political demonstrations, at least survived one abortive rocket attack 44 years ago. And that was when Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the Argentine-born revolutionary who fought alongside Fidel Castro in Cuba, was addressing the General Assembly sessions in December 1964 when his speech was momentarily drowned by the sound of an explosion.
The anti-Castro forces in the US, which had mounted a campaign to stop Che Guevera from speaking at the UN, launched an attack on the Secretariat building. A 3.5 inch bazooka was fired at the glass-fronted building by a Cuban exile group. But the rocket launcher missed its target and ingloriously fell into the river bordering the Secretariat.
All that will be history when a shiny new UN building re-opens in 2013-- if the renovation goes on schedule. |
E-mail