United Nations Headquarters

Since 1952 the member states of the UN have met here, on land that belongs to the UN itself

Local name: United Nations Headquarters

Collection: New York · USA · Open in OpenStreetMap

The UN Secretariat Building above the East River · Choinowski, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

The story

Before you is the headquarters of the United Nations. In December 1945 the United States Congress unanimously invited the UN to make its home in America. Sites were studied in Philadelphia, Boston and San Francisco. It was John D. Rockefeller Jr. who settled it: at the last minute he offered eight and a half million dollars to buy this site on the East River. On the fourteenth of December 1946 the General Assembly accepted. Back then it was a run-down area of slaughterhouses, workshops and barge landings. There was no competition: architects from many countries designed the headquarters together. The chief architect was the American Wallace K. Harrison, and his board included Le Corbusier of France and Oscar Niemeyer of Brazil. They went through some fifty designs. On the twenty-fourth of October 1949, UN Day, Secretary-General Trygve Lie laid the cornerstone. President Harry S. Truman stood beside him. In the summer of 1950 the staff moved into the Secretariat Building. It has thirty-nine stories and stands 550 feet tall. Its glass wall was the first of its kind in Manhattan, and its blank ends are faced with Vermont marble. The General Assembly first met in its hall on the fourteenth of October 1952. This land has a special status: American police and officials may enter only with the consent of the Secretary-General. In front of the Secretariat is a round pool. The black pebbles on its floor were gathered by the women and children of the Greek island of Rhodes. And along First Avenue fly the flags of the 193 member states of the UN.

Visiting

1st Avenue at 46th Street. The chambers can only be seen on a paid guided tour of about an hour, including the General Assembly Hall and the Security Council Chamber when no meetings are on; tours are offered in all six official UN languages. Before your visit you must register on the UN security website; adults need an original government photo ID. Start at the Visitor Check-in Office at 801 1st Avenue, at 45th Street, an hour before the tour; then go to the visitors’ entrance at 46th Street. Children under five are not allowed on tours. Large backpacks are not permitted, and there is no storage. Check the UN website before you go to make sure tours are running.