Gutting an aging interior

Today’s story about the underbelly of the United Nations headquarters (here) made me feel about as ancient as the building itself (and I am! I am! –give or take a year). The NY Times article describes a building that was meant to last 30 years without an overhaul and it is now going on 51+. What are you likely to find if you poke your nose behind the vast, awe-inspiring conference rooms? Consider this from the Times:

East River water is pumped into the building as a coolant, and Mr. Raymond (a foreman who has worked at the UN for 25 years) said workers had collected eels, blue claw crabs and bluefish from the basement filters to take home to cook. …

[P]eriodic surveys have found the building, with its asbestos, lead paint and outmoded plumbing and electrical systems, to be alarmingly behind the times. …


In the rooms directly above the high voltage chamber, computers have been known to go into visual convulsions, and Vivian van de Perre, a management officer, said, "We sometimes joke with each other that the only women we'll allow to sit there are the ones who've already had their children."

[photo to the right, btw, depicts the UN "knotted gun" monument]

There is, finally, a plan (subject to a loan approval from the US) to renovate the “patched-together, aging interior of the landmark Modernist marble and glass tower.” This pleases me no end. 50+ structures should occasionally be updated, polished and improved. It sends a message of hope to 50+ year old structures. An overhaul is possible: past sins of omission and commission erased, insides overhauled, a fresh and unblemished outlook on life achieved. [Hey, are we still talking about the building? Maybe yes, maybe no.]