Printer Friendly
The Free Library
19,122,084 articles and books
Member login
User name  
Password 
 
Join us Forgot password?

Inside the blue, green, gold Hall.


For decades the 18-acre site on the edge of New York's East River was one of general urban squalor squal·or  
n.
A filthy and wretched condition or quality.



[Latin squlor, from squ
: slaughterhouses, a railroad barge landing and tenements that nearby high-rise Tudor City Tudor City is an apartment complex located on the East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is bordered by E 40th Street to the South, First Avenue to the East, Second Avenue to the West and E 43rd Street to the North.  apartment houses turned their back on.

In 1948, when excavation began, it gave way to the beginnings of the United Nations vertical garden city on Turtle Bay Turtle Bay is the name of the following places:
  • Turtle Bay is a bay in Western Australia, near Broome.
  • Turtle Bay Exploration Park is a recreational park and museum in Redding, California, focusing on wildlife and ecology education.
: a 550-foot glass, aluminum and marble slab housing the Secretariat, the sloping, shallow domed General Assembly building, and the horizontal Conference building, hyphenating them both.

Forty years later, in July 1988, the monumental blue, green and gold General Assembly Hall was invaded by a small army of construction workers and electronics technicians The United States Navy occupational rating of Electronics Technician (abbreviated as ET) is a designation given by the Bureau of Naval Personnel (BUPERS) to enlisted members who satisfactorily complete initial Electronics Technician "A" school training.  to undertake the first major renovation of the Hall since 1952. They installed a state-of-the-art, fully computerized voting system Noun 1. voting system - a legal system for making democratic choices
electoral system

legal system - a system for interpreting and enforcing the laws
. New display screens will allow delegates to view voting results.

In the General Assembly, the main UN deliberative de·lib·er·a·tive  
adj.
1. Assembled or organized for deliberation or debate: a deliberative legislature.

2. Characterized by or for use in deliberation or debate.
 organ, each Member State has one vote.

The Assembly can make recommendations on practically any subject-from disarmament to AIDS prevention, from legal matters to literacy and hunger. While Governments do not have to do as the Assembly says, they usually respond to its decisions; the Assembly, after all, carries the moral authority of the world community.

The world forum can order research on whatever subject it sees fit. It appoints the Secretary-General, on Security Council recommendation. And it holds the UN purse strings purse strings or purse·strings
pl.n.
Financial support or resources, or control over them: the politicians who control federal purse strings; tightened the corporate purse strings.
, approving the biennial biennial, plant requiring two years to complete its life cycle, as distinguished from an annual or a perennial. In the first year a biennial usually produces a rosette of leaves (e.g., the cabbage) and a fleshy root, which acts as a food reserve over the winter.  budget and deciding how much each Member State should contribute.

The third Tuesday in September has traditionally been the Assembly's opening day. The bulk of the Assembly's work is normally completed by mid-December. In recent years, it suspends its work and concludes officially the day before the next session begins the following September. The first thing the Assembly does is elect its President, 21 Vice-Presidents and Chairmen for seven Main Committees.

The Presidency rotates each year among five groups of States: African, Asian, Eastern European, Latin American and Western European and Other States.

With increasing frequency, the Assembly has also been meeting in special sessions, in addition to the regular one. Special and emergency special sessions can happen at any time. Emergency gatherings may be called within 24 hours of a request by the Security Council or a majority of UN Members.

Most issues on the Assembly agenda are dealt with in its seven Main Committees.

Two traditional events taking place every year right before the Assembly opening are International Peace Day and UN Staff Day. This year, Peace Day was observed on 19 September with a live, 60-minute TV special relayed through satellite to 15 countries from the Assembly Hall.
COPYRIGHT 1989 United Nations Publications
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.
Copyright 1989, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.

 Reader Opinion

Title:

Comment:



 

Article Details
Printer friendly Cite/link Email Feedback
Title Annotation:General Assembly Hall
Publication:UN Chronicle
Date:Dec 1, 1989
Words:434
Previous Article:The United Nations: 'At the center of it all.' (interview with Under-Secretary-General for Political and General Assembly Affairs and Secretariat...
Next Article:Decolonization Committee reviews situations in 18 territories; special meeting on Declaration asked.
Topics:



Related Articles
The United Nations: 'At the center of it all.' (interview with Under-Secretary-General for Political and General Assembly Affairs and Secretariat...
Lakeside spectacular.
ARTISTS CHALK IT UP TO EXPERIENCE COLORFUL YET SHORT-LIVED PASTELS SHOW ZEST, SPIRIT OF THE MOMENT.
Regional Roundup.
Music Briefly.
Ecological lessons: the many ecological innovations in this Norwegian school should inspire radical new thinking about the type.
Room for tradition: classic holiday themes come together in a New Albany home filled with special meaning.
Showa Denko K.K. (SDK) Launches GaN-based Near Ultraviolet and Green LED Chips.
Aragon gets learning experience.
It's a girl thing: set a lady like mood at any gathering with pretty hydrangea-covered decorations.

Terms of use | Copyright © 2012 Farlex, Inc. | Feedback | For webmasters | Submit articles