Crumbling U.N. Seeks $1 Billion for Renovation

[The Mad Monk]

Originally posted by Sandman
The building has obviously been neglected because of funding issues, otherwise the asbestos would have been removed long ago.

Considering the billions America spends on pointless military projects, this is a bargain by comparison.

Sure, and compared to a Porche Boxter, a Ford Pinto is a bargain by comparison. Do you spend money on everything "because it's a brgain"?

Why should I have to cover for their incompetance?

[Sandman]

Why should I have to cover for their incompetance?

Paying the interest will cost $20 million per year over 30 years. The UN provides economic benefits to New York; the diplomats bring money into the local economy. The money will be used hiring American companies and paying the wages of American workers. Plus, it will improve America's standing in the world. It's a good deal.

[The Mad Monk]

They don't add that much money. They don't pay taxes, they didn't pay fine until recently, and they're notoriously cheap when it comes to spending their own money.

I dislike the UN in way that only someone forced to live in the same area as them all his life can.

[CerberusIV]

Relocate the UN to Baghdad.

It will mean money and jobs for the Iraqi economy and when the diplomats go past the bombed buildings and have to deal with the traffic and everything else it will remind them who they are supposed to be working for the benefit of.

New York can demolish the existing buildings and reuse the sites commercially. Their economy won't suffer.

[GePap]

It is obvious that member states never felt the need to pay for major work to be done on the UN buildings since they were built, and hence their utter backwardness. As for your comparisons to the ESB, that building is a commercial building and thus has had to meet changing stadards or it would have been declared unsafe and lost its tennents, so the ocmparison is flawed.

As how how much they are asking: I am in no place to judge. If a competent and trusted firm did the annalysis, then I have no reason to doubt it.

[Carver]

$1 billion is insane if it is just for the UN complex on the East River.

The Petronas Towers cost only ~$1.6 billion (I've seen slightly different figures).

[DarthVeda]

That's $1 Billion in UN Dollars, I mean you have to figure in all the kickbacks they have to pay out with that, and all the other programs that are going to come up with strange reasons to take from the pot, and then there's always the addition of that adjacent 80,000 seat soccer/football stadium those foreign diplomats have been clamoring for.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Carver
$1 billion is insane if it is just for the UN complex on the East River.

I'm shocked the damn thing hasn't collapsed on itself if it is for that building.

[Sprayber]

Originally posted by GePap
As for your comparisons to the ESB, that building is a commercial building and thus has had to meet changing stadards or it would have been declared unsafe and lost its tennents, so the ocmparison is flawed.

So the UN buildings don't have to worry about safety? I thought public buildings were supposed to maintain the same set of standards.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Sprayber


So the UN buildings don't have to worry about safety? I thought public buildings were supposed to maintain the same set of standards.

Under what code? The UN is not US territory (it's not anyone's territory) so they do not haver to legaly met the building codes of any specific member states. And since the UN and its members have porbalby been to cheap to spend money to upgrade over time, i can imagine how it has deteriorated so bady.

[The Mad Monk]

I wonder how much of that one billion dollars will be going to refurbish the cafeterias that the occupants looted a few months ago...

[GePap]

300 million.....

[The Mad Monk]

Originally posted by GePap


Under what code? The UN is not US territory (it's not anyone's territory) so they do not haver to legaly met the building codes of any specific member states. And since the UN and its members have porbalby been to cheap to spend money to upgrade over time, i can imagine how it has deteriorated so bady.

Which, of course, returns to the question: why must I pay for their incompetance?

It costs enough as it is just paying for our incompetance.

[DanS]

This is the Goldman Sachs tower, being built in Jersey City just across the river from Manhattan, at a cost of $650 million

That's a king's ransom for only 2 million square feet. It is about $100/ft^2 more expensive than normal skyscraper space.

[DanS]

As to the briefing, it's amazing how we go from "several financing options" in the briefing in 2000 to "[i]t is an established norm set by the host countries following the example set by the U.S. government after World War II to provide an interest-free loan" in the 2003 article.