United Nations headquarters

From Freepedia

The United Nations headquarters is a distinctive complex in New York City that has served as the United Nations's headquarters 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 UN General Assembly), and the Dag Hammarskjöld Library. It is also notable for its gardens and outdoor sculpture.

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.

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.

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.

Proposed alternatives

Prior to the choice of the site in New York City, Navy Island 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 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.

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 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 anyplace but the real UN Headquarters.

The headquarters complex is a major setting in The Animatrix: The Second Renaissance, with key events in the film taking place in the General Assembly and the Security Council Chamber. At the end of the film, the headquarters is destroyed by a small nuclear device hidden inside Zero-One's mechanical ambassador.

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.

In the computer game Half-Life 2, there is a newspaper clipping showing a scene from the Seven Hours War, in which the United Nations Headquarters are being attacked by Combine aircraft.