page_title: United Nations Plaza (San Francisco)
section_title: Anniversaries of the United Nations
hierarchical_section_title: United Nations Plaza (San Francisco) / Location and history / Refurbishment / Anniversaries of the United Nations
caption_attribution_description: English: United Nations Plaza; San Francisco Civic Center, San Francisco This is an image of a place or building that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the United States of America. Its reference number is 78000757
context_page_description: United Nations Plaza is a 2.6-acre plaza located on the former alignments of Fulton and Leavenworth Streets—in the block bounded by Market, Hyde, McAllister, and 7th Street—in the Civic Center of San Francisco, California. It is located ¹⁄₄ mi east of City Hall and is connected to it by the Fulton Mall and Civic Center Plaza. Public transit access is provided by the BART and Muni Metro stops at the Civic Center/UN Plaza station, which has a station entrance within the plaza itself.
  UN Plaza was designed by a joint venture of firms led by the noted architects Lawrence Halprin, John Carl Warnecke, and Mario Ciampi; Halprin designed the large sunken fountain. The plaza was dedicated in 1975 to commemorate the formation of the United Nations and the signing of the Charter of the United Nations on 26 June 1945. Since its dedication, the plaza was refurbished in 1995 and 2005, and in Spring 2018, three redesign proposals were proposed for public review.
context_section_description: In 1995, for the 50th anniversary of the United Nations, a "Walk of Great Ideas", funded with private donations, was added to the plaza at a cost of US$400,000 (equivalent to $670,000 in 2019). The Walk consisted of eight white granite paving stones inlaid with the preamble to the UN Charter in brass, matching the style of the coordinates cross in the southwest part of the plaza. Additional updates in 1995 included inscribing a list of UN member nations on the light standards, adding the UN emblem to the center of the plaza, engraving the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on an existing 17-foot (5.2 m) tall black granite obelisk, and updating the lighting fixtures. The original luminaires were semi-translucent and square, matching the shape of the columns; the updated fixtures (which remain today) are frosted glass globes.
  A new round of refurbishment started in March 2005, at a cost of US$1,500,000 (equivalent to $2,000,000 in 2019), for the 60th anniversary of the UN. Planned improvements included a new stone monument to commemorate UN World Environment Day 2005, hanging the flags of all 191 member nations, and the inscription of new member nation names on the light standards. In addition, the city began to increase the number of events booked for the plaza to encourage "a healthy, vibrant environment that anybody can enjoy."
caption: The plaza's obelisk in 2014
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