Sunday February 17, 2013, 2:29 pm
Alex Gallafent

Alex Gallafent is the New York-based correspondent for The World. His reporting has taken him to Swaziland, Turkey, Chile, and India, among other places.

Capital of the World: The Race to Host the United Nations
February 13, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment
The St. Louis Chamber of Commerce pitched nearby Weldon Spring as a location for the fledgling United Nations. (Image: Missouri History Museum, St. Louis)

The St. Louis Chamber of Commerce pitched nearby Weldon Spring as a location for the fledgling United Nations. (Image: Missouri History Museum, St. Louis)

As the second world war shuddered to a close, the challenge was how to preserve a hard-won peace. A new body, the United Nations, was conceived.

The center of world power had shifted to the United States, so it would meet there.

But where in the US? Before New York got the nod, hundreds of other cities and towns vied for the honor of building a kind of ‘world capital’.

In fact, in the mid-1940s, the plan was anywhere but New York City. The Big Apple was too imposing. Too famous. And besides, putting the UN inside another city felt wrong: how could a new center for global diplomacy distinguish itself in the shadow of the world’s most famous skyline?

So, where else?

Anything You Can Do..

Post-war America wasn’t short on confidence. Songs like ‘Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better’ filled the airwaves. And so the idea of a meeting place for all the peoples of the globe captured people’s imagination.

Why shouldn’t it be built in Conway, New Hampshire? Or Pinehurst, North Carolina? Or Corpus Christi, Texas? In all, nearly two hundred and fifty towns, cities and communities across America expressed interest in hosting the United Nations.

Charlene Mires is the author of a new book about the race to host the UN is called ‘Capital of the World’.

“Wouldn’t it be most appropriate for the UN to be on an island at Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan, where they could be surrounded by peaceful water?”

Towns made their pitches, Mires says.

“Or wouldn’t it be best for the UN to be in Tuscahoma, Oklahoma which had been the capital of the Choctaw Nation as a statement of justice for native peoples?”

The proposals weren’t exactly altruistic. Civic boosters were excited about the jobs and visitors the UN would bring.

Oz in South Dakota

Take Rapid City, in the Black Hills of South Dakota. In the 1940s, a local businessman tried to persuade the UN to make its home there, a stone’s throw from Mount Rushmore. The pitch included a set of fantastical architectural drawings.

“At its center a road begins as a spiral and moves outward and outward and outward”, says Charlene Mires.

“It reminds me of the Wizard of Oz, which would have been fairly current at that time. And the offices were spaced around [the spiral] and they would have put villages for each national delegation out in the hills. They also noted that the World Highway, which was envisioned as going right around the world, would go straight through the middle.”

Boosters could dream big that like. But the small group of international diplomats assigned to find an American home for the UN-to-be had to think beyond the fantasies of a world capital.

The Contenders

The west coast was deemed too far from Europe. The midwest had a reputation as being isolationist (not a good fit). And the south was ruled out over fears that non-white diplomats would feel unwelcome.

So the search committee focussed on America’s north east. And they found a place they really wanted: Greenwich, Connecticut. Only Greenwich, Connecticut didn’t want them.

The moderator of a key town meeting there was Prescott Bush, the father of one President Bush and the grandfather of another.

Mires says Bush wasn’t against the idea of the United Nations. But he made the case that, in Mires’ words, “this will change the character of our town too much. And furthermore, nobody asked us first.”

Greenwich wasn’t the only place to turn the UN down. It was embarrassing that the world’s new decision-making body couldn’t decide on a new home.

Soon only a few serious candidates remained, all of them in or near major cities. Among them were Boston and Philadelphia, which was offering a piece of parkland just outside the center of town. Philadelphia had the infrastructure, the cultural amenities and as the so-called ‘Cradle of Liberty’ a pretty good story too.

Winner Takes All

“Philadelphians were convinced they were going to win” says Mires. “The New York Times carried headlines saying the UN was about to anoint Philadelphia as the Capital of the World. What was not known was that in the final days behind the scenes the call had gone out to Nelson Rockefeller to help solve the problem and bring the prize home to New York.”

Rockefeller’s dad, John, offered $8.5 million to buy a plot of empty land on Manhattan, overlooking the East River. There were no residents to placate, no obstacles to overcome.

The power brokers of New York were offering the UN an easy solution.

“At the last minute it wasn’t about geopolitics” reflects Mires, “[and] it wasn’t about creating a Capital of the World.”

There was to be no Oz-like fantasy city for global diplomacy. Instead, there were to be headquarters: somewhere to make deals, not dreams.

Sunday February 17, 2013, 5:04 pm
The Rockefellers, of course!... I've always thought it is misplaced in the US, should have been more in the center of all nations-which makes it -Europe, that's right!
A shame, the Rockefellers did NOT take care later and sat by letting the US become the biggest debtor to UN fees!

Sunday February 17, 2013, 5:10 pm
You cannot currently send a star to Angelika because you have done so within the last week.

Sunday February 17, 2013, 7:05 pm
There are many times when I'd like to see the U.N. in the Antartic

Sunday February 17, 2013, 7:07 pm
Sounds pretty cold Terry. You cannot currently send a star to Terry because you have done so within the last week.

Sunday February 17, 2013, 8:40 pm
Thanks J.L. for posting the link, but I couldn't get it to play, so I hoping the text to posted is the transcript. Very interesting and I'm not one bit surprised that Nelson Rockefeller and his dad John were involved. Read and noted.

Sunday February 17, 2013, 8:45 pm
You are welcome John. I was able to play it with Windows Media Player. Content of audio does differ from text.
You cannot currently send a star to Laura because you have done so within the last week.