The United Nations met in Flushing Meadows from 1946-56.

By DAVID OATS

From the ashes of World War I, there rose a Phoenix of hope and international cooperation – the United Nations. For the first time, since the failed League of Nations, there would be established an instrument where nations and peoples could settle their differences in the diplomatic arena rather than on the bloody fields of battle.

Herein follows a brief history of how the United Nations, still the greatest hope for world peace, was founded in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in the most ethnically diverse county in the country – Queens.

President Roosevelt’s dream of a “United Nations” was the first order of business of a war-weary world picking up the pieces from the greatest conflict in human history. In San Francisco on Oct. 24, 1945, the charter of this new international organization was signed by the 51 member nations. Eager to not repeat the isolationist mistake that doomed the League of Nations, President Harry S. Truman committed the American people to this peacekeeping body.

The infant United Nations needed a home and the U.S., now at the pinnacle of world power, was selected as the host country. San Francisco and Philadelphia made strong bids to become the site of the U.N. and so Mayor William O’Dwyer formed a committee of 12 prominent New Yorkers to prepare a proposal that would insure the selection of New York City as permanent headquarters of the world organization.

Robert Moses was named chairman of this committee, which included such notables as Nelson A. Rockefeller, Former Roosevelt advisor and postmaster-general James Farley, N.Y., Times publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger and former Fair president Grover Whalen. After extensive-research and planning, the panel issued a report contained in an impressive book with sketches and designs for a magnificent World Capitol, which the city would provide to the United Nations. The site they chose was Flushing Meadow.

“I believe that we have in Flushing Meadow Park in Queens a very accessible site in every way suited to the present and future requirements of the United Nations for working space for the World Capitol in surroundings which insure protection from all unfavorable influences,” Mayor O’Dwyer stated in his introduction to the report.

The proposal offered to donate most of the central body of the park for U.N. use and future expansion. Architects’ renderings detailed huge structures for the various agencies of the organization surrounded by lagoons and amphitheaters. A residence for the Secretary General would be located on the site. “I urge that those officials of the United Nations charged with the final responsibility for selecting the permanent site of the World Capitol give full and serious consideration to Flushing Meadow Park. If they do, I believe that they will find nothing else comparable to it.” O’Dwyer said.

On the strength of that proposal, New York City was chosen as the home for the World Capitol by Secretary General Trygve Lie and the U.N. However, the donation by the Rockefeller family of over $8 million for the purchase of a property in the Turtle Bay section of Manhattan along First Avenue by the East River made that the permanent location. A maze of slaughterhouses and slum dwellings, the Manhattan site would be reclaimed in a mini-version of the dump to glory sage of Flushing Meadows. The architect who would design the permanent glass tower for the U.N. was Wallace K. Harrison – the man who had designed the Trylon and Perisphere a decade before.

Until the new structure was built, however, the United Nations world has to meet the challenge of keeping the peace in a fragile world. They would need a meeting place and they selected the New York City building in the park as that place. The world had returned to Flushing Meadows.

The ice rink was covered over and replaced by the seats of the delegates of the countries that made up the U.N. Among those delegates were Adlai Stevenson, Dag Hammerskjold, Golda Meir, Andrei Gromyko and Eleanor Roosevelt who saw her late husband’s dream of a world peacekeeping organization come true at the very site in which he had envisioned it eight years before when FDR first visited the fairgrounds.

On the 23rd of October, Trygve Lie convened the first session of the General Assembly in the New York City Building. Robert Moses and Mayor Vincent Impelliteri handed over the keys of the building to the U.N.

President Truman came to deliver the opening address. “All nations large and small are represented here,” the President stated. “This Assembly is the world’s supreme deliberative body. The highest obligation of this assembly is to speak for all mankind in such a way as to promote the unity of all members in behalf of a peace that will be lasting because it is founded upon justice. It must be everlasting,” said Truman and he quoted the scriptures. “Swords shall be beaten into ploughshares, and nations shall not learn war anymore.