New York 'dispatch' ...

Politico, here

"...... A couple blocks east on 48th, at Park, the Intercontinental the Barclay hotel, where the Iranian delegation headed by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is apparently staying. An employee reached at the front desk of the Barclay this morning declined to say if the Iranian delegation was there. “There’s really nothing to say,” she said.

Despite staying at nearby hotels, there’s not much chance Obama and Ahmadinejad will but cross traffic and security convoys in New York. “With respect to the Iranian leader, I don't think there's much likelihood that there will be an interaction,” US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice said at a White House press conference last week. “There's no obvious venue in which that would occur, and certainly we have no meetings or anything of the sort planned.

Academics who have previously met with Ahmadinejad in New York say the Barclay is Ahmadinejad’s usual destination the past several years he’s visited New York during UN General Assembly week.  “He goes there every year,” Columbia University’s Gary Sick said. “He has a small ballroom or large conference room which he uses to host people. He usually has 40 guests for the academic track. This year, my very informal sources say that only about 24 people have accepted.”.... 

Police have entirely shut down Lexington avenue for six city bocks even to pedestrian traffic as Obama is apparently expected to arrive back at the Waldorf Astoria hotel for planned meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, after his address to the UN on climate change.

Also expected to be in the room, at Obama's meetings with the Mideast leaders, a U.S. official tells me, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, peace envoy George Mitchell, and national security advisor Jim Jones. They are still keeping expectations low, the official said.

Obama's convoy just passed -- and now you can walk, policemen are telling all the people they'd been holding behind barricades.

A private session with President Barack Obama is a big diplomatic get — all the more so when it comes as world leaders are descending en masse on New York for the opening week of the United Nations General Assembly. But two foreign leaders seem apprehensive, to say the least, about their meeting with Obama on Tuesday: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Netanyahu and Abbas did not dare decline a U.S. presidential invitation for a meeting with Obama, ........But both men also know that risks abound for them when they gather with Obama at the Waldorf Astoria hotel. With little or no chance for substantive breakthroughs at this largely cosmetic session, even the stagecraft could be dangerous. The iconic photograph that will doubtless emerge from the meeting, for starters, will be painstakingly scrutinized by highly skeptical domestic political audiences back home — audiences that are concerned that their leaders didn’t live up to demands for more concessions from the other side before agreeing to their first meeting, even one that does not commit them to anything.

For Obama, too, the trilateral meeting with the Israeli and Palestinian leaders is not without risks. Even a symbolic meeting and photo op raise expectations of what can be achieved. “Obama thinks he can extract some agreement outline and announce a follow-up,” a former Israeli diplomat said. “What seems certain is that the U.S. will not — at this stage — come out with a declaration of principles.

“Clearly, the Obama team wants to start the next chapter,” an American Jewish community leader told POLITICO on condition of anonymity. “I presume Bibi wants to make sure of two somewhat contradictory things: that he has demonstrated to Abbas and all Arabs that, actually, Obama — even Obama — cannot ‘deliver’ Israel; and that he is not to ‘blame’ for any kind of failure to reach a deal or relaunch of talks.”