United Nations International School

2450 Franklin D Roosevelt Drive | also 24-50 FDR Drive | Kips Bay | built 1950

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The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1947

    October 17

    The International Nursery School, later UNIS, opens with 36 children from 15 countries

    The International Nursery School, which became UNIS, was founded on October 17, 1947, with four teachers and 36 children. The pupils came from 15 countries and between them spoke 10 languages, and tuition was $500 a child. On May 6, 1948, the UN Secretariat's Legal Department allowed the school to use "United Nations" in its name.

    Source: theunisverse.com

  2. 1964

    The Ford Foundation offers $7 million toward a school building at United Nations headquarters

    In 1964 the Ford Foundation pledged $7 million, with conditions attached, toward a new UNIS building at the United Nations headquarters, next to a playground already there. Funds also came from Sweden and Libya. UNIS also held a site at York Avenue and 89th Street, which it sold in 1965, and in 1967 a different alternative south of the UN headquarters was put forward.

    “In 1964, the Ford Foundation offered a conditional donation of $7 million for a new school building at the headquarters of the United Nations…”

    Source: Wikipedia

  3. 1965

    Ford Foundation and Rockefeller family money pay for a school building at the end of 25th Street

    UNIS's own history says that in 1965 the school was given $7.5 million by the Ford Foundation and $1 million by the Rockefeller family toward a new school at the end of 25th Street on the East River. It describes the project as the start of the riverside campus the school occupies today. Since 1958 UNIS had occupied an empty public school building on First Avenue at 70th Street.

    Source: unis.org

  4. 1966

    January

    A Liberty ship used as a school annex leaves Pier 73 to clear the site for a platform

    Before the United Nations International School stood here, this waterfront was Pier 73, where the SS John W. Brown, a former Liberty ship, was moored as an annex of the Food and Maritime Vocational High School. The city had proposed in August 1965 that the new school be built on a platform at the site. In January 1966 the ship was moved to Pier 42 so that construction of the platform could begin.

    Source: Wikipedia

  5. 1969

    May 5

    An RAF Harrier lands on a Marine-built pad at the future school site to win the Daily Mail air race

    On May 5, 1969, on the East River waterfront where UNIS would later be built, RAF test pilot Tom Lecky-Thompson set a Harrier down on a pad the U.S. Marines had set up on a pier off East 25th Street. He had lifted off from a coal yard at London's St Pancras station and refuelled in midair repeatedly on the way. An off-duty police officer then drove him by motorbike to the Empire State Building, and his time of 6 hours 11 minutes earned the RAF the 6,000-pound first prize.

    Source: henleystandard.co.uk

  6. 1971

    A United Nations stamp bearing a Picasso painting raises money for UNIS

    In 1971 the United Nations issued a commemorative stamp showing a Pablo Picasso painting of his daughter, with proceeds going to UNIS and the International School of Geneva. Since 1968 UNIS had been holding classes at East 51st and 54th Streets while it waited for its permanent building on the East River to be constructed.

    Source: unis.org

  7. 1971

    Secretary-General U Thant dedicates a cornerstone plaque for the new school building

    According to UNIS's history, an architectural firm was commissioned in 1971 to design the school's riverside campus, working with the Ford Foundation. Secretary-General U Thant launched construction at a ceremony in the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations, where he dedicated a cornerstone plaque to the new building. U Thant had already handed out UNIS diplomas in 1964, when the school celebrated its first official graduating class.

    Source: unis.org

  8. 1973

    January

    The school's permanent East River building opens, designed by Harrison & Abramovitz

    UNIS's main building on East 25th Street opened in January 1973 and was the school's first permanent home. Harrison & Abramovitz designed it, and it was erected on a platform already in place for the planned school, which a Rockefeller Brothers Fund grant of $1 million had paid for. Until then UNIS had occupied premises on East 51st and East 54th streets, with its high school on East 11th Street.

    “The main building on 25th Street opened in January 1973, marking the first permanent location for UNIS in its history.”

    Source: Wikipedia

  9. 1989

    Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar visits UNIS to speak about children's rights

    In 1989 UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar came to UNIS and spoke to the school about the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Secretaries-General had a long relationship with the school: U Thant gave out diplomas in 1964, and Kofi Annan gave the graduation speech and handed out diplomas in 1999.

    Source: unis.org

  10. 2012

    Hurricane Sandy floods the school's bottom floor and closes it for nine days

    During Hurricane Sandy in 2012, floodwater overwhelmed the bottom floor of the school building, and UNIS stayed closed for nine days. The account appears in a 2018 student-newspaper list of facts about school history, which draws on a history of the school by retired teacher Peter Atkinson.

    Source: theunisverse.com

Further reading

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