The USUN Ambo's Residence Gets Downsized (and Curtains)

50 UN Plaza, NYC, pretty much all windows

The New York Times seems to have a thing for running failed exposés about the official residences of Trump administration cabinet officers. Last week it was SecState Pompeo's new rental house that will save the taxpayer around $100,000 a year in security costs, and this week it was the new condo in UN Plaza - list price $58,000 a month - that State rented for the USUN Ambassador. That's a lot of money, but according to press reports we used to pay a truly astonishing $135,000 a month to rent the previous official residence at the Waldorf Astoria hotel. The new place is a bargain in comparison.

So, according to the NYT, the scandal here is all about the curtains in the new place. Now, really, curtains have got to be just about the most petty and insignificant of all the many things that must go into the fitting out and furnishing of a new USUN Ambassador's representational residence. Why go on about the cost of the curtains rather than, say, the security or communications costs? It's enough to make me think the NYT is insinuating Ambassador Nikki Haley was indulging herself in a Martha Stewart-ish domestic diva fit of redecorating. Check your prejudices, New York Times.

From the NYT's slightly dialed back second version of the story:

The State Department spent $52,701 for customized and mechanized curtains for the picture windows in the new official residence of the ambassador to the United Nations.

The residence is in a new building on First Avenue in Manhattan. For decades, American ambassadors to the U.N. lived in the Waldorf Astoria hotel. But after the hotel was purchased by a Chinese insurance company with a murky ownership structure, the State Department decided in 2016 to find a new home for its top New York diplomat because of security concerns.

-- snip --

The current ambassador, Nikki R. Haley, is the first to live in the new residence, which has spectacular views. But a spokesman for Ms. Haley emphasized that plans to buy the mechanized curtains were made in 2016, during the Obama administration. Ms. Haley had no say in the purchase, he said.

While ambassadors around the world are given residences, there are only two such residences in the United States — for the U.N. ambassador and the deputy ambassador.

The ambassador’s new residence is particularly grand since it is used for official entertaining.

-- snip --

The new curtains themselves cost $29,900, while the motors and hardware needed to open and close them automatically cost $22,801, according to the contracts. Installation took place from March to August of last year, during Ms. Haley’s tenure as ambassador.

Is the NYT really surprised at those costs? For a penthouse having a bit under 6,000 square feet of floor space and 11-foot high floor-to-ceiling windows that wrap around all four sides of the apartment, not to mention that you're paying New York City labor rates, that's the price you can expect for motorized curtains. I assume the NYT has reporters who could check with contractors that do that kind of work and, oh, I dunno, maybe get some cost estimates so that their readers would have a way to judge how out of line, or not, those costs really are. But that's not what they did.

You can find a description and photos of the new residence here. The bottom line is that the builders of NYC's high-end penthouses are just crazy about windows.