The Police Department increased security around the headquarters of the United Nations on Wednesday after people emerged from a manhole on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where many world leaders are staying to attend the General Assembly, the police said.
Three people climbed out of a manhole at around 4:30 a.m. on Wednesday near East 61st Street and Park Avenue, according to two law enforcement officials with knowledge of the matter. The people then got into two vehicles and fled the area, according to security footage that captured the incident, the officials said.
It was unclear on Wednesday why the people were in the sewer system, and there were no immediate indications that the episode had any connection to the General Assembly, where nearly 130 heads of state are gathering this week.
“We have seen a number of incidents over the past few months of individuals going into the sewer system to look for valuables and other scrap metal after a storm,” the Police Department said in a statement. “This incident fits that same criteria.”
“But out of an abundance of caution, given the U.N. General Assembly and the sensitivity of the location, the N.Y.P.D. is conducting additional security sweeps with our federal partners,” the statement said. “The N.Y.P.D. has a robust response to these incidents, which were deployed overnight and additional measures today.”
The U.N. is on First Avenue in the East 40s, in the Turtle Bay neighborhood of Manhattan.
Officials from the city’s Department of Environmental Protection also investigated the incident and found no damage to critical infrastructure, according to a spokesman for the agency.
The episode on Wednesday was at least the sixth time that officials had detected people going in or out of the city’s vast sewer system since May. Most of those incidents have been captured on camera. Speculation about the motives of the sewer invaders has ranged from scavenging for valuables, such as copper wire, to urban exploration.
At a news conference last week, Jessica S. Tisch, the police commissioner, said there were no known specific or credible threats to the United Nations or to the city. Still, the arrival of the heads of state — including President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel — has heightened public safety concerns.
As a standard practice, the police and members of other federal law enforcement agencies have provided security for motorcades as world leaders and other senior officials move from the U.N. headquarters to hotels and other events across the city, Ms. Tisch said. Thousands of officers patrol the area, while drones and members of the department’s aviation and harbor units secure the city’s skies and waterways.
“This is one of the most complex security operations that we carry out, and it involves every aspect of our department,” she said.
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