Our second stop took us to Long Island, where the Sperry Gyroscope Plant, originally built for wartime production, became the UN’s main headquarters after Hunter College.
The building housed administrative staff, hosted meetings, and welcomed delegates under the flags of all nations.
Walking through it, we could easily imagine the Security Council and General Assembly committees holding their first sessions there, tackling early crises while Trygve Lie and the Secretariat shaped the UN’s administrative structure.
Lake Success was the birthplace of several landmark UN initiatives. Much of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was drafted there before its adoption in Paris in 1948.
UNICEF, the Commission on the Status of Women, and the UN Atomic Energy Commission were also founded on campus, reflecting the UN’s early focus on humanitarian aid, gender equality, and nuclear disarmament.
On 29 November 1947, the UN voted here to establish a Jewish State in Israel. The Headquarters Advisory Committee also met at Lake Success to plan the permanent UN complex in Manhattan, making it a true cradle of the modern UN.
The former factory was transformed into offices, chambers, lounges, and cafeterias suitable for diplomacy, where a five-course lunch cost $2, and mingling was the norm.
Delegates even had to navigate quirky rules, like New York State liquor laws enforced at the bar on election days.
Despite its modernity, the campus was a labyrinth. Our wonderful drivers, Dermot and Shavkat, needed 10 minutes to circle it!
A journalist remarked that any diplomat who could navigate Section K without a map was clearly qualified to untangle global geopolitics.
Lake Success also hosted the first UN Guided Tours, managed by the American Association for the United Nations, laying the foundation for today’s UN Visitors Centre.
Between 1948 and 1950, nearly a million visitors came through its doors, watching diplomats arrive in everything from berets to saris, a remarkable start to a long-standing tradition.
The campus also saw the birth of the “International Nursery School,” later the UN International School (UNIS), enrolling 36 children from 15 countries and 10 languages, with 4 teachers and tuition at $500 per child.
We left Lake Success inspired and amazed, grateful for the chance to walk through the UN’s early history and see the world from the perspective of the visitors we usually guide.
Many thanks to the Department of Operational Support's Archives and Records Management Section for their support and providing key information about the UN's historical sites.
