Headquarters of the United Nations

The United Nations is headquartered in New York City in a complex designed by a board of architects led by Wallace Harrison and built by the architectural firm Harrison & Abramovitz. The complex has served as the official headquarters of the United Nations since its completion in 1951. It is in the Turtle Bay neighborhood of Manhattan, on 17 to 18 acres (6.9 to 7.3 ha) of grounds overlooking the East River. Its borders are First Avenue on the west, East 42nd Street to the south, East 48th Street on the north, and the East River to the east. The term "Turtle Bay" is occasionally used as a metonym for the UN headquarters or for the United Nations as a whole.

The headquarters holds the seats of the principal organs of the UN, including the General Assembly and the Security Council, but excluding the International Court of Justice, which is seated in the Hague. The United Nations has three additional subsidiary regional headquarters, or headquarters districts. These were opened in Geneva (Switzerland) in 1946, Vienna (Austria) in 1980, and Nairobi (Kenya) in 1996. These adjunct offices help represent UN interests, facilitate diplomatic activities, and enjoy certain extraterritorial privileges, but do not contain the seats of major organs.

Although it is in New York City, the land occupied by the United Nations Headquarters and the spaces of buildings that it rents are under the sole administration of the United Nations and not the U.S. government. They are technically extraterritorial through a treaty agreement with the U.S. government. However, in exchange for local police, fire protection, and other services, the United Nations agrees to acknowledge most local, state, and federal laws.[8]

None of the United Nations' 15 specialized agencies (such as UNESCO) are located at the headquarters. However, some "autonomous subsidiary organs", such as UNICEF, have their headquarters at the UNHQ.

## History

### Planning

#### Site

The headquarters of the United Nations occupies a site beside the East River, on between 17 and 18 acres (6.9 and 7.3 ha) of land purchased from the real estate developer William Zeckendorf Sr. At the time, the site was part of Turtle Bay, which contained slaughterhouses and tenement buildings, as well as the original Eberhard Faber Pencil Factory. By the 1910s, there was also a pencil factory and a gas company building in Turtle Bay, on the site of the current UN headquarters. The development of Sutton Place and Beekman Place, north of the current UN site, came in the 1920s. A yacht club on the site was proposed in 1925, but it proved to be too expensive.

In 1946, Zeckendorf purchased the land with the intention to create an "X City" on the site. This complex was to contain an office building and a hotel, each 57 stories tall, and an entertainment complex between them. The X City would have also had smaller apartment and office towers. However, the $8.5 million ($74 million in 2019) for X City never materialized, and Nelson Rockefeller purchased an option for Zeckendorf's waterfront land in Turtle Bay. The purchase was funded by Nelson's father, John D. Rockefeller Jr. The Rockefeller family owned the Tudor City Apartments across First Avenue from the Zeckendorf site. The city, in turn, spent $5 million ($43 million in 2019) on clearing the land.

## Design

Map of the United Nations headquarters in Dutch. The green rectangle is the Dag Hammarskjöld Library, the purple rectangle is the Secretariat, the blue trapezoid is the Conference Building, and the grey shape is the General Assembly Building

While the United Nations had dreamed of constructing an independent city for its new world capital, multiple obstacles soon forced the organization to downsize their plans. They ultimately decided to build on Rockefeller's East River plot, since the land was free and the land's owners were well known. The diminutive site on the East Rivernecessitated a Rockefeller Center-type vertical complex, thus, it was a given that the Secretariat would be housed in a tall office tower. During daily meetings from February to June 1947, the collaborative team produced at least 45 designs and variations. Rather than hold a competition for the design of the facilities for the headquarters, the UN decided to commission a multinational team of leading architects to collaborate on the design. Harrison was named as Director of Planning, and a Board of Design Consultants was composed of architects, planners and engineers 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 Seu-cheng(China), Sven Markelius (Sweden), Oscar Niemeyer (Brazil), Howard Robertson (United Kingdom), G. A. Soilleux (Australia), and Julio Vilamajó (Uruguay).

## See Also

Trump World Tower

28 Liberty Street