NUKE YORK CITY

But the only institution that gives this town the right to boast of being the "capitol of the world" almost stayed in Geneva, home of the League of Nations, the U.N.'s predecessor. When it was decided that the U.N. would follow Roosevelt back across the Atlantic from Yalta, New York almost lost out to host-city rival Philadelphia. Just when it looked like Philly would claim the U.N. for itself, John D. Rockefeller and Robert Moses combined forces to secure 18 tax-free acres at Turtle Bay. And so Capitol of the World we became.

As long as the Soviet Union was around, the U.N. was a relatively sexy spot on the Manhattan map. It was where wart-faced Soviet premiers banged on podiums with their shoes and the world split dramatically into Western, Soviet and neutral blocs. If a Security Council meeting ended in rancor or a walkout, it could very well have meant the end was near. The whole world watched U.N. goings-on closely. What happened there mattered.

It still does. Currently representatives from 189 nations are gathered at 1st and 45th to discuss the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which since 1968 has provided a tenuous legal framework for the control and eventual abolition of nuclear weapons. In case you missed it, it's on the verge of collapse. If it does fall apart, then the consequences will be dire, for no city more than New York, still the most likely to suffer an act of nuclear terrorism. No other metropolis is as dense or as vital, so crucial to the functioning of the world economy. We will forever have a "kick me" sign on our back.

The current administration in Washington may deny it, but dealing with this threat is impossible without strengthening and modernizing the outdated treaty now up for review on the East River. It doesn't take a 500-page Council on Foreign Relations report to see that the only effective way to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism is to secure the world's supply of weapons-grade material. And by secure we mean Fort Knox.

Controlling this material means closing current loopholes in the NPT that allow states to create and traffic in the stuff for peaceful purposes, and closing these loopholes means supporting the avowed goals of the treaty. But doing this would require the major nuclear powers to refrain from upgrading and investing in their own swollen nuclear arsenals. This is where things get tricky. At the moment the major powers, led by Washington, are doing the opposite, thus fueling the logic of proliferation and pushing the faint promise of eventual disarmament even further past the horizon, creating a geopolitical nihilism that can only result in a world teeming with nuclear weapons and material.

Following arms-control debates is not easy or fun, especially now, but the debate underway at Turtle Bay is about New York City as much as Pyongyang or Tehran. It deserves our closest attention.