On the East River

On Manhattan's East Side one day last week, a 2,000-lb. steel ball swung from a towering caterpillar crane, smashed into the base of a brick wall. Bricks and girders came thundering to earth in a billowing cloud of pink dust. The building under demolition was one of the last five remaining on the site of U.N.'s future headquarters.

But, though the 17-acre area was being rapidly leveled, U.N. still did not know just how soon it would be able to build the tall stone plinths of its permanent home. A bill to lend U.N. $65 million had finally been approved by the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Yet U.N.'s bill stood a chance of getting lost in the shuffle of unfinished congressional business. Said James Dawson, U.N. Coordinator of Construction: "We will need every break to be ready for U.N.'s fall meeting in 1950."

The last man to worry about such delays was probably Salvatore Cinquemani, a lean, leathery, 65-year-old Sicilian with a point of view of his own. By next month Salvatore would be the only private tenant left on U.N.'s rubble-covered property. His establishment was tucked in a corner of the site, overlooking the East River: two cinder-packed bocce courts (bocce is the Italian form of outdoor bowling), surrounded by knee-high board fences. Salvatore's customers were mostly shirt-sleeved, elderly men. When they were not playing they sat on orange crates and empty nail kegs, playing cards.

At first, like many other tenants, Salvatore had tried desperately to save his modest enterprise. He appealed to Mayor William O'Dwyer. The mayor referred him to Commissioner Robert Moses. "I wrote Moses, but no answer," said Salvatore sadly. Now he is resigned, but hopeful. As the spinning steel ball brought down the buildings around him last week, Salvatore said: "We're good, quiet people, all working people. Mostly Italians, but there's a Jewish fella and an Irish fella. We always get along. No fights. Never need the police. So maybe they let us stay, huh?"

The U.N., blocked by congressional inaction, could only mark time. The bocce players, in their quiet corner, looked safe at least through the summer and fall.

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