United Nations Plaza

On June 1, 2005, environmentalists and mayors from around the world will be gathering for a five-day U.N. World Environmental Day in San Francisco. The City is furiously overhauling the drug-addled space between Market Street and Civic Center.

According to an article in the San Francisco Examiner on Tuesday, "the environmental summit will include U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and hundreds of mayors from capitals as diverse as London, Shanghai, Buenos Aires, and Sydney. The United Nations charter was signed June 26, 1945 in the Herbst Theater auditorium and Civic Center Plaza will host both opening ceremonies June 2 and the signing of the "urban environment accords" June 5."

Last Tuesday, bricklayers were setting the last of 10,000 new bricks in the plaza's southeastern corner, an area that will eventually, though not in time for June 1, sport a café with tables, chairs, and a bollard fence. Meanwhile, workers wheeled fresh sod into the plaza, laying it down on new granite beds built next to the Civic Center BART entrance. Along the plaza, 16 large, globe-shaped lights have been installed, and five new lamps illuminate the space in front of Carl's Jr., long an open-air bazaar for uppers and downers and stolen bikes. Today, public works will start hanging flags of 191 U.N. nations on wire stretched across the plaza.

My walk to work takes me right through the United Nations Plaza every morning and I would just like to say it looks really, really nice now. The globe-shaped lights that surround the plaza are really amazing. I was looking at the detail of each globe and I can actually make out all of the countries, which is really cool considering the globes are huge and on pillars about 10 feet off the ground. As for the flags representing all 191 United Nations members, they were being assembled this morning and had the potential to add just the right touch to the plaza.

I just hope that after the conference next week the United Nations Plaza remains as nice as it does right now.