United Nations Headquarters

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 .

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. It is also notable for its Gardens and outdoor Sculpture .

The United Nations headquarters building was constructed in New York City in 1949 and 1950 beside the East River on land purchased by an 8.5 million dollar donation from John D. Rockefeller, Jr. . It is a declared international zone belonging to all Member States, and as such will survive in perpetuity, forever belonging to the Member States as an asset of the UN.

The site of the United Nations headquarters has Extraterritoriality status like embassies do. 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.

It is sometimes incorrectly stated that the famous "beat their swords into plowshares" passage from the , a New York City municipal park across the street from the U.N.

The complex has a street address of 760 United Nations Plaza, New York, NY 10017, USA. Security concerns subject all mails addressed thereto to sterilization, so items that may be degraded should be sent by courier {Link without Title} .

PROPOSED ALTERNATIVES

San Francisco , 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.

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 .

Prior to the choice of the site in and 1946 . The island was considered to be an ideal location as it lay on the boundary of two peaceful bordering countries. 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 U.N. move. The proposal was ultimately turned down in favor of the current site in New York City.

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 .

Though legally not obligated to do so, the buildings are built in compliance with New York City building codes.

The construction was financed by an interest-free loan of $65 million made by the United States government.

IN FICTION AND FILM

The building has a distinctive appearance in '' North By Northwest ''; a shot in the building's cavernous lobby was simulated through creative use of a Matte Painting .

In '' The Pink Panther Strikes Again '', the building is destroyed by a Disintegrator Ray .

'' The Art Of War '' -- starring Wesley Snipes , Donald Sutherland , Anne Archer , and Michael Biehn -- details the activities of a UN covert operations force investigating the assassination of the Chinese ambassador to the United Nations. The climax of the film takes place in the Secretariat building.

'' The Interpreter '' -- released in the Spring of 2005 , directed by Sydney Pollack , and starring Sean Penn and Nicole Kidman -- was the first movie to be filmed inside the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council buildings. The filming took place at night, when the buildings were not being used for official business. Pollack felt that the movie could not be filmed any place but the real UN Headquarters.

In '' The Peacemaker '', terrorists plotted to destroy the UN HQ by detonating a stolen Russian nuclear warhead.

Is featured in the black-and-white film noir, '' The Glass Wall ''. The building is the "glass wall" mentioned in the title.

Due to its international status, the United Nations Headquarters is often used as a symbol for the human race and the planet as a whole:

The headquarters complex is a major setting in '''', with key events in the film taking place in the General Assembly and the Security Council Chamber. Towards the end of the first part of the two-part film, the United Nations and their unwillingness to accept the mechnical nation of Zero-One as a charter member represents mankind's hostility towards the machines (who, at this point in the film, are peaceful). At the end of the film, the headquarters is destroyed by a small nuclear device hidden inside Zero-One's mechanical ambassador. In this role, the ruined Headquarters complex is used to represent the human civilizations of Earth, which collapse into ruins following the Man-Machine War.

In the computer game '' Half-Life 2 '', the complex is shown on the front page of a newspaper during the Seven Hour War . In the photograph, the Headquarters complex is badly damaged and is under attack from Combine forces. In this case, the ruined and embattled Headquarters complex symbolically represents the whole planet, which is suffering the same fate during the brief war.

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United Nations Headquarters