Architecture critics mostly pan the Metropolitan Opera's home base, which lacks both the daring of confections like the Sydney Opera House and the grandeur of the Palais Garnier or La Scala. It's hard to argue, however, with the productions that go on inside the building--or with the Chagall paintings that hang in its lobby.

Metropolitan Opera House

General Assembly of United Nations votes to construct headquarters in New York City.

The United Nations Headquarters was designed by an international committee of architects chaired by Wallace K. Harrison. It was championed by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who donated a site initially assembled for real estate purposes by William Zeckendorf. Its 18-acre plot is now an international zone belonging to all Member States. The architectural team included well-known architects Oscar Niemeyer &amp; Le Corbusier, along with representatives of eleven other countries. The narrow slab of the UN's Secretariat Building is 39 stories and only 72 feet thick while rising some 544 feet above plaza base. Overall, the Headquarters consist of 4 main buildings: the General Assembly building, the Conference Building, the Secretariat building, &amp; the Dag Hammarskjold Library, added in 1961. To help link the development with the rest of Manhattan to the west, under the direction of Robert Moses, 1st Ave. traffic was diverted into a tunnel making way for United Nations Plza. above. Similarly, the FDR also passes beneath the conference center building. The complex is currently slated for a major refurbishment designed to upgrade its mechanical systems &amp; environmental characteristics.

United Nations Headquarters

In Manhattan Projects: The Rise and Fall of Urban Renewal in Cold War New York, Samuel Zipp sheds new light on the state of New York’s urban renewal after World War II. Focusing on four iconic “Manhattan Projects” – the United Nations headquarters at Turtle Bay, Stuyvesant Town, Lincoln Square and the great swaths of public housing in East Harlem - he unearths forgotten stories and characters that flesh out the conventional history of urban renewal.&nbsp;

An American architect. Harrison started his professional career with the firm of Corbett, Harrison &amp; MacMurray, participating in the construction of Rockefeller Center. He is best known for executing large public projects in New York City and upstate, many of them a result of his long and fruitful personal relationship with Nelson Rockefeller, for whom he served as an adviser.

with model of Metropolitan Opera House interior

Wallace K. Harrison

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