Sunday, March 28, 2010

As UN Bar Re-Opens, Delegate Lounge Tech Help to Close, First Beer

By Matthew Russell Lee

.UNITED NATIONS, March 25 -- Four hours after UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon answered two Press questions about Myanmar on the second story of the UN's new building, just down the hall the UN Delegates Lounge bar belatedly re-opened.

Three months ago, the long time Delegates Lounge mimicked in the Alfred Hitchcock movie North by Northwest was closed. At first, no replacement was planned. The UN Management official scoffed that there are many bars out on Second Avenue.

But delegates and ambassadors as well as this publication complained. As one denizen put it, many diplomatic problems were solved over drinks, in a setting that no Second Avenue bar could reproduce. You just go to the Delegates Lounge, he said, and find everyone you need to speak with.

Well, not everyone. But in the spirit of the moment, Inner City Press came to witness the re-opening. A Corona, the first, was offered on the house. And we're back.


New UN bar on March 25, 2010, Ulysses at the helm

Back reporting too. Right next to the new Delegates Lounge is the ICT Resource Center, a booth where lower tech Ambassadors could use computers and even borrow laptops. It is now slated to be closed, next Wednesday, under the direct supervision of a cost cutting UN official named Frank Moser.

And if member states complain? Watch this site

No comments: