United Nations Headquarters

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Midtown East
First Avenue (at 46th Street), New York, New York 10001(212) 963-8687

Category:
Sightseeing
Hours:
Tours weekdays 9:30-4:45, weekends 10-4:30, no weekend tours Jan. and Feb.; tours in English leave... Read More
Price:
Tour $13
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The Man with the Folded Gun Photo - United Nations Headquarters, New York, New York

User Reviews

Leaving the US without Leaving NYC

by Liam Hetherington

Manchester, United Kingdom

November 12, 2010

Best of IgoUgo I am – like most IgoUgo-ers I imagine – by nature an internationalist and I love the diversity of the world’s cultures and the differences that come from crossing a border. And one border can be crossed without even leaving New York City. ...Read more I am – like most IgoUgo-ers I imagine – by nature an internationalist and I love the diversity of the world’s cultures and the differences that come from crossing a border. And one border can be crossed without even leaving New York City. Technically the ground whereon sits the headquarters of the UN is international territory and is generally accorded extraterritoriality. There are no passport border posts, but there is a thorough security screening in a tent outside the main building watched over, at the time of my visit, by Caribbean troopers in blue UN uniforms. Having studied international politics at University I could not wait to book myself on a tour of the UN Headquarters.

That is what I had to do however. Critics of the UN say that it is slow, unwieldy and overly beaureaucratic. I certainly found this to be true of the tour ! They set off at certain times during the day. I just missed an English language tour (the UN has six official languages remember) due to being stuck in a slow-moving queue for tickets and so I had to wait around the lobby of the General Assembly building for another half-hour until the next English tour. The lobby – based on a plan by Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer – had the high atrium and curvy white balconies that I instantly recognised from North By Northwest (Hitchcock was actually forbidden to film here however, so the UN scenes in that film are recreations). I spent my spare 30 minutes admiring the Iranian carpets depicting the various UN Secretary Generals and perusing the tribute to those staff that lost their lives in that year’s Haiti earthquake.

The tour, when it came, was courtesy of a Japanese guide. We were sorted out with clip-on passes and radio headsets and led on a tour of the complex, admiring some of the fantastic / rotten gifts donated to the UN by its member states over the years. We were given a spiel about the good works of the United Nations. Notably the talk did not dwell overmuch on prevention of war, a task at which it has singularly failed – in tha past few years alone note the Russian invasion of Georgia, the armed conflicts between Israel and factions in Lebanon and Palestine, and the US-UK invasion of Iraq. There was some talk of ‘promoting dialogue’ but most of the tour focused on areas where the United Nations has historically been strong – aid, education, health promotion, the environment, responses to catastrophes (natural or manmade). It was a reminder that the UN does so much more than try to prevent friction between nations bubbling over. Just because it has historically failed in its most high-profile task does not mean that the organisation as a whole is worthless. Far from it.

That being said, the highlights of the tour were, of course, the chambers of the General Assembly and Security Council. The General Assembly is the main deliberative organ and all member states are represented equally here whether they are America, India or Andorra. We were ushered around the back of a huge bee-hive of a chamber, rows of lecture-hall-like desks stretching up to the central dais. On my visit I found the chamber’s seats speckled with people taking part in a debate – nothing world-breaking I’m afraid, just a HR conference. But thoughts immediately turned to Khrushchev banging his shoe on the desk in 1960, Hugo Chavez referring to President Bush as ‘the devil’ in 2006 and the mass walk-out of many European and North American nations earlier this year when Mahmoud Amedinejad of Iran accused the US government in complicity with the 9/11 attacks.

The second great arm of the UN – the ‘cabinet’ as it were – is the Security Council. This is a select executive arm made up of the US, UK, France, Russia and China (all of whom have veto powers) and ten other nations chosen by regional blocs within the General Assembly for two-year terms. The capacity of the five permanent members to veto decisions has been criticised as a real weakness of the organisation as they are able to effectively muzzle opposition to any action they want to take. Since 1984 China and France have used their veto 3 times each, Russia / the USSR 4, the UK 10, and the US 43 (over twice as many times as the other four members combined).

On this occassion we were not actually in the official Security Council chamber, as it was closed for renovation. Instead another meeting hall had been made up to resemble the chamber, down to the horseshoe-shaped desk and the Norwegian mural on the back wall. It was empty – we wouldn’t have been allowed in otherwise ! Our guide had had a number of hurried conversations to ascertain whether we could go in or not ; she explained that there had been an emergency meeting to discuss the ongoing situation in Guinea. (To which I nodded sagely and opined "Ah yes… the ongoing situation in Guinea. Of course…"). But this room (or rather the room for which it was standing in for) regularly plays host to the most powerful and influential people on the planet. Decisions affecting the globe, matters of peace and war, are debated here. Most notable of course would be Adlai Stevenson’s revelation of Soviet missile sites in Cuba in October 1962 ("Don’t wait for the translation, answer Yes or No !"). Personally I recalled being in a cash-and-carry in Manchester in early 2003 where the staff and customers were huddled around a portable TV cheering Dominique de Villepin’s address to the Security Council in which he systematically destroyed the Anglo-American arguments for invading Iraq.

In total the tour lasted about an hour, which for $16 is pretty pricey. But I suppose the UN needs the money. The whole complex was just rather tatty, a dated 1950s concrete Modernist centre that obviously needed upkeep. The signs didn’t seem to have been changed since they were first erected, paint peeled from the institutional mint-green walls, TV monitors did not work, hatches hung open and could not be properly shut. In many ways it is reassuring that what money the United Nations receives is spent out in the field (they currently have more ongoing peacekeeping missions than at any time in their history) rather than on their own headquarters. There was a small selection of shops downstairs (including a UN post office where you could buy UN stamps – valid only if posted from this building). Sadly the UNESCO stall had already closed for the day. I can see that a tour would maybe not appeal to anyone, and the commentary is rather air-brushed. However, it did stress the importance of the UN in terms of aid and the Millennium Development Goals, hopefully creating a more positive view of the organisation. And being able to enter the grand chambers of the General Assembly and Security Council is a real treat for politics nerds like me.
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Leaving the US without Leaving NYC