Read It And Weep...

Kofi pad to get $4.3M fixup

Daily News Exclusive: "The United Nations plans to gut the super-luxe East Side townhouse that's home to the secretary general and give it a multimillion-dollar renovation - complete with a $200,000 kitchen. That's a fantastic budget. It'd be a hell of a thing," said Stefan Boublil, owner of swanky SoHo design firm The Apartment. The pricey kitchen upgrade is only a small part of a $4.3 million overhaul of the four-story Sutton Place manse where Kofi Annan has lived rent-free for a decade. And that's not the whole cost. Ban Ki Moon, the South Korean diplomat due to succeed Annan on Jan. 1, will spend his first nine months in a Manhattan hotel at an additional cost of $202,500 so workers can tackle the job. The UN General Assembly adopted the renovation plan last week. Despite its handsome brick exterior and posh riverfront location, the home hasn't had any serious work done since 1950 and has deteriorated into a crumbling firetrap, according to documents obtained by the Daily News. The plumbing is leaking, the plaster walls are falling apart and the electrical system keeps overloading - costing $60,000 a year in emergency fixes, Annan complained recently. The massive upgrade includes a $2.1 million heating and cooling system, $650,000 security improvements and even $100,000 in landscaping. The cost of the heating and cooling system "sounds extraordinarily high to me," said Sean Dineen of Dineen Construction Co. in Brooklyn. "I'm doing a renovation of an entire brownstone in Park Slope for $1.7 million," he added. But one contractor who does lots of work in the Sutton Place neighborhood said the renovation sounded like a relative bargain. Grand Renovation President John Buchbinder said certain work - like fixing the townhouse's elevator - can start at $400,000. Buchbinder also said the bill for the heating and cooling system sounded reasonable for an especially energy-efficient setup. The 14,000-square-foot townhouse was built for Anne Morgan, daughter of financier J.P. Morgan, in 1921. The UN received the home as a gift in 1972. The repair bill comes on top of the UN's plan to overhaul its East Side headquarters over the next eight years at a projected cost of $1.9 billion."

FULL STORY

A $200,000 kitchen. $4-5 million, easy, for the complete rennovation of the Secretary General's home. And forget the measly $1.9 billion going to the big building, everyone associated with the project knows the final cost is expected to top $3 billion.

For The United Nations. The sleazy, corrupt, America hating United Nations.

Your tax dollars at work.