The United Nations headquarters complex is falling down.
Asbestos remains throughout, there are no sprinklers, and wheelchair access is poor.
The complex, designed in 1947 by Wallace Harrison with input from a gang of international architects that included Le Corbusier, is the foremost masterpiece of midcentury modern architecture in this country. It should, of course, be saved at all costs. As the other 187 members would argue, we lured the U.N. here, we derive the political and economic benefits of having the organization on our soil, the least we can do is help fix the buildings. That deal would rescue the island from the banal mixed uses currently planned for it and could save the original buildings. As soon as the U.N. vacates, the complex would fall into the protective embrace of the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission.