United Nations Secretariat Building

762 1st Avenue | also 752 1st Avenue | United Nations | built 1952

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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. 1946

    December

    John D. Rockefeller Jr. gives the UN a riverfront site of slaughterhouses

    In December 1946 John D. Rockefeller Jr. donated land along the East River in Turtle Bay, bought from developer William Zeckendorf, as a permanent home for the new United Nations. The site had been lined with slaughterhouses and tenements. An international board of architects led by Wallace Harrison, including Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer, worked out the design between February and June 1947.

    Source: Wikipedia

  2. 1947

    An international board of architects designs the Secretariat tower

    Wallace Harrison led a team of ten architects from ten countries, including Le Corbusier of France and Oscar Niemeyer of Brazil, who together designed the Secretariat Building's slab tower. Secretary-General Trygve Lie recommended cutting the planned tower from 45 to 39 stories to save money, and the General Assembly approved the final headquarters design in November 1947. Though the effort was collaborative, Le Corbusier later claimed the buildings were entirely his own design.

    Source: Wikipedia

  3. 1948

    Le Corbusier's sun-breaker demand leads the architects to test a facade mockup on a neighboring roof

    In 1948 Le Corbusier insisted that the Secretariat's glass walls carry fixed sun-breakers, or brises-soleil. Wallace Harrison countered that they would cost a lot and be hard to clean in winter. The architects settled the dispute by building a test version of the planned facade on top of the neighboring Manhattan Building. The finished curtain wall was glazed in heat-absorbing blue-green glass, one layer thick.

    Source: Wikipedia

  4. 1949

    October 24

    Governor Thomas E. Dewey lays the Secretariat Building's cornerstone

    On October 24, 1949, New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey laid the cornerstone of the UN Secretariat Building on the fourth anniversary of the United Nations' founding. The tower's steel frame had topped out weeks earlier, on October 5, after the American Bridge Company raised the 39-story superstructure in barely a year. It would become the first skyscraper in New York City to use a glass curtain wall.

    Source: Wikipedia

  5. 1950

    August 21

    The first UN staff move into New York's first glass curtain-wall tower

    Ground was broken on September 14, 1948, and on August 21, 1950, the first 450 staff members moved into the lower floors of the Secretariat; the 39-story slab was fully occupied by June 1951. It was the first skyscraper in New York City clad in a glass curtain wall, with about 5,400 windows on its broad east and west faces.

    Source: Wikipedia

  6. 1951

    The new glass walls leak 4,916 times before repairs cut a later storm's count to 16

    After the building opened, officials announced repairs to the windows, which were leaking because of poor weather-stripping. They had counted 4,916 leaks before the work was finished in mid-1951, and a storm that October produced only 16. Separately, smoke from Consolidated Edison's nearby Waterside power plant was fouling the air intakes, and the United Nations agreed in November 1950 to move them.

    “Officials had recorded 4,916 instances of leaks before the windows were repaired in mid-1951.”

    Source: Wikipedia

  7. 1964

    Marc Chagall's stained-glass window "Peace" is dedicated in the lobby

    In 1964, Marc Chagall's stained-glass window Peace was installed in the Secretariat Building's lobby, dedicated in memory of former secretary-general Dag Hammarskjöld. The 15-by-12-foot window remains on view in the lobby among the building's public art.

    Source: Wikipedia

  8. 2012

    October 29

    Hurricane Sandy floods the third basement and shuts the United Nations headquarters for three days

    Superstorm Sandy flooded the third basement of the United Nations headquarters with several feet of water in late October 2012. The flooding paralyzed the building's electronic nerve center and kept many staff from returning to their offices. The first Security Council session after the storm was set for a temporary conference room in the north lawn building, which had served as Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's office during the renovation.

    Source: foreignpolicy.com

  9. 2012

    Engineers replace the Secretariat's 5,000-pane curtain wall and bring back its original blue-green tint

    The Secretariat's window system of about 5,000 panes was replaced with multilayered laminated glass that flexes and resists shattering in a blast. A report in The Globe and Mail said many of its galvanized metal anchors had been in serious danger of failing. The new glass also returned the tower to its original blue-green color.

    Source: theglobeandmail.com

  10. 2012

    Staff return to the Secretariat after its first full overhaul

    Between 2010 and 2012 the Secretariat was emptied in phases for its first comprehensive renovation, which removed asbestos, replaced outdated systems and brought the tower up to modern building codes. Workers moved back in between July and December 2012.

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

Nearby

All 3 buildings with stories in United Nations