United Nations

The United Nations headquarters is a distinctive complex in New York City that has served as the headquarters of the United Nations since its completion in 1952. It is located in the Turtle Bay neighborhood, on the east side of Manhattan, on spacious grounds overlooking the East River. Though it is in New York City, the land occupied by the United Nations headquarters is "international territory", and its borders are First Avenue west, East 42nd Street south, East 48th Street north and the East River east. FDR Drive passes underneath the Conference Building of the complex.

The complex includes three major buildings: the Secretariat (the 39-floor office tower), the General Assembly building (where all member nations of the United Nations meet in the United Nations General Assembly), and the Dag Hammarskjöld Library. A small, fourth building, the Conference Building, is situated between the General Assembly and Secretariat buildings, and can be seen only from FDR Drive or the East River. The complex is also notable for its gardens and outdoor sculptures.

It is sometimes incorrectly stated that the famous "beat their swords into plowshares" passage from the Book of Isaiah (Isaiah 2:4) is inscribed on a wall at the U.N. headquarters building. In fact, the inscribed Isaiah Wall is in Ralph Bunche Park, a New York City municipal park across the street from the U.N.

The United Nations headquarters buildings were constructed in New York City in 1949 and 1950 beside the East River, on seventeen acres of land purchased from the foremost New York real estate developer of the time, William Zeckendorf. This purchase was arranged by Nelson Rockefeller, after an initial offer of placing it on the Rockefeller family estate of Kykuit was rejected as being too isolated from Manhattan. The $8.5 million purchase was then funded by his father, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who donated it to the City. The lead architect for the building was the real estate firm of Wallace Harrison, the personal architectural adviser for the family.

International character

The land underneath the buildings remains the territory of the United States. However, the site of the United Nations headquarters has extraterritoriality status, typical of embassies. This affects some law enforcement where UN rules override the laws of New York City, but does not give immunity to crimes that take place there. In addition, a few members of the UN staff have diplomatic immunity and so cannot be prosecuted by local courts unless the diplomatic immunity is waived by the Secretary-General. In 2005, Secretary-General Kofi Annan waived the immunity of Benon Sevan, Aleksandr Yakovlev, and Vladimir Kuznetsov in relation to the Oil-for-Food Program. All have been charged in the US Federal Court of New York, except for Kofi Annan's own son, also implicated in the scandal. Benon Sevan later fled the US to Cyprus, while Aleksandr Yakovlev and Vladimir Kuznetsov decided to stand trial.

The complex has a street address of 760 United Nations Plaza, New York, NY 10017, USA. For security reasons, all mail sent to this address is sterilized, so items that may be degraded should be sent by courier. The United Nations Postal Administration issues stamps, which must be used on stamped mail sent from the building. Journalists, when reporting from the complex, will not use " New York" as the identification of their location in recognition of the extraterritoriality status. For example, Richard Roth is CNN's UN correspondent, while Ian Williams is his counterpart at The Nation, and Carola Hoyos is the UN correspondent for the Financial Times.

Proposed alternatives

San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens, and even the Black Hills of South Dakota were all proposed as sites for the United Nations headquarters before Manhattan was finally decided upon. It was later revealed that France, the UK and the Netherlands voted against situating the headquarters in the United States.

In 1945-6 London hosted the first meeting of the General Assembly in Methodist Central Hall, and the Security Council in Church House. The third and sixth General Assembly sessions, in 1948 and 1951, met in the Palais de Chaillot in Paris.

For the first few years, the UN was headquartered at a temporary location in Lake Success, New York, an eastern suburb of New York City on Long Island. The Security Council has also held sessions on what was then the Bronx campus of Hunter College (now the site of Lehman College).

Prior to the choice of the site in New York City, Navy Island near Niagara Falls in Ontario, Canada was proposed as an alternative headquarters for the United Nations. An international committee pitched the site as the "World Peace Capital" over 1945 and 1946. The island was considered to be an ideal location as it lay on the boundary of two bordering countries of a peaceful status. It was proposed that Navy Island would be ceded to the United Nations as long as the headquarters remained, and to revert to the Canadian government should the UN move. The proposal was ultimately turned down in favor of the current site in New York City.

Since the Headquarters buildings are in need of repair, it has been suggested that a new temporary site be created at the old Lake Success location. Brooklyn has also been suggested as a temporary site. Another alternative for a temporary headquarters or a new permanent facility is the World Trade Center site.

Architecture

Rather than announce a competition for the design of the facilities for the headquarters, the UN decided to commission a collaborative effort among a multinational team of leading architects. American architect Wallace K. Harrison was named the director of planning, and a board of design consultants was nominated by member governments. The board consisted of N.D. Bassov of the Soviet Union, Gaston Brunfaut/Belgium, Ernest Cormier/Canada, Le Corbusier/France, Liang Ssu-cheng/China, Sven Markelius/Sweden, Oscar Niemeyer/Brazil, Howard Robertson/United Kingdom, G.A. Soilleux/Australia, and Julio Villamajo/Uruguay.

The committee considered 50 different designs before arriving at a decision. The basis for the final design was based on Le Corbusier's design, known as "scheme 23A."

Bound by such constraints as the East River Drive (later the Franklin D. Roosevelt East River Drive) and the East River, it became necessary to build a high-rise office building for the secretariat. The 39-story Secretariat Building was controversial in its time but became a modernist landmark. Its characteristic east-west walls were fully covered with thermopane glass designed to absorb heat from sunlight, except for air intakes on the 6th, 16th, 28th and 39th floors. The north-south walls are covered with Vermont marble.

Per an agreement with the New York City government, the buildings meet some but not all local fire safety and building codes. The construction was financed by an interest-free loan of $65 million made by the United States government.

Renovation plans

In recent years, however, the headquarters buildings have come to need extensive renovation, including the need to install sprinklers, fix leaks, and remove asbestos. A renovation plan was announced in 2000 involving the building of a temporary headquarters on what is now a playground (Robert Moses Park) across the street from the current facility. Once renovations were finished, the temporary building would be used to ease overcrowding at the UN's DC-1 (1 United Nations Plaza) and DC-2 (2 United Nations Plaza) office buildings, providing more space for UN specialized agencies such as UNDP(United Nations Development Programme). However, due to the refusal of the federal and New York state governments to fund the project, little has been accomplished as of 2006.

United Nations Online