New Headquarters at U.N. Designed to Withstand Terrorism. For more than 40 years, it has been the workplace of America’s most famous ambassadors, including George H.W. Bush and Madeleine K. Albright. It has also served as a key staging ground for some of the country’s most important diplomatic initiatives, including U.S. efforts to sell the world on its invasion of Iraq and to defuse a potential nuclear war with the Soviets during the Cuban missile crisis. But the headquarters of the U.S. Mission to the United Nations doesn’t generate much respect among the world’s diplomatic set, whose members have derided the gray 12-story structure as an architectural eyesore that is unfit to house the world’s lone superpower. “It’s ugly,” said Germany’s U.N. ambassador, Gunter Pleuger. “And inside it’s not very modern. I think the United States delegation deserves a better one.” The United States is set to get an upgrade. Construction workers will demolish the building on 45th Street and First Avenue over the next four months to make way for a heavily reinforced, 23-story high-rise that is designed to accommodate nearly twice the staff and survive a car bomb explosion. Full Story
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