Sunday, June 26, 2005 2:05 p.m. EDT 
Albany Derails U.N. Facelift 
Late last week, the New York State senate refused to endorse a United Nations capital master renovation plan, which would have ceeded a nearby city park to the world body. 
With the legislature now on a summer recess, the U.N. plan as currently envisaged is essentially dead. 
The United Nations is in the process of trying to overhaul its signature 38-story glass walled Secretariat building. Not only is its foundation slowly descending into the nearby East River, it is also loaded with asbestos, which federal and city authorities insist must be removed. 
The U.N. had hoped to build a new 35-story, 900,000 sq. ft. facility in nearby Robert Moses Park to house the organization's 6,000 workers while the Secretariat underwent renovations. 
Afterwards, the U,N. had hoped to use the new building to condense other employees currently scattered around Manhattan. 
While it is unclear why the NYS senate turned thumbs down on the U.N. project, some legislators insisted that Albany was in no mood to give the world body any handouts in lieu of the ever-widening Oil for Food program scandal. 
Though the U.N. could use land on its own campus for the new facility, it is not clear how it can finance the project, which is believed to carry a price-tag of more than $1 billion. 
Secretary-General Kofi Annan had hoped that New York State and New York City together with Washington would assist in helping the U.N. garner the necessary finances to underwrite the project. 
Now it seems the city and state will come up dry. 
However, the likely fallback plan, erecting the new building on the U.N.'s north lawn, has local neighbors up in arms. 
The area in question is the home to many posh residences, including Donald Trump's World Tower, on East 49th St. 
Many are concerned over potentially losing a priceless view of the Manhattan seaside should the new tower be built. 
The problem for the neighbors is that the U.N. land is exempt from city and state control. 
It could however turn into a PR nightmare, something Kofi Annan and Company are trying to avoid. 
Late last week, one of the U.N. officials overseeing the project, Alexander Yakovlev, a 30-year veteran unexpectedly resigned a day after the organization announced an internal investigation into claims that he illegally steered contracts to a firm in Lichtenstein, which also employed his son. 
The Yakovlev resignation surfaced as several news organization have launched their own examination into the relationship between Annan chief of staff Mark Malloch Brown and financier George Soros. 
Malloch Brown confirmed several press reports that he rents a suburban NYC mansion from Soros, though the U.N. official insisted that he has not been given any special favors. He went on to proclaim that news reports on his rental agreement were loaded with bile.