UN @ 60: Global Issues in the New Millennium

UN @ 60:

Global Issues in the New Millennium

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A project of LaGuardia Community College in honor
of the United Nations' Sixtieth Anniversary

The United Nations in Queens

Fiorello LaGuardia and The UN

May there be freedom, equality and brotherhood among all men. May there be morality in the relations among nations. May there be, in our time, at long last, a world at peace in which we, the people, may for once begin to make full use of the great good that is in us.

Ralph Bunche, UN International statesman, Nobel Peace Prize Winner, 1950 (and Queens resident)
Closing comments from his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize.

From Les Prix Nobel en 1950, Editor Arne Holmberg, [Nobel Foundation], Stockholm, 1951.
http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/1950/bunche-acceptance.html

From 1939-1941 The World Fair was held in Flushing Meadows. The UN was first housed in Flushing Meadows in some of the same buildings used for the World Fair. From 1946-1951, Flushing Meadows and a site in Lake Success were the sites of General Assembly meetings and other covocations during which many important resolutions were adopted.

Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, the namesake of the college, was a human and labor rights activist from his days as a congressman and translator at Ellis Island. After he his last term as Mayor of NYC he became head of a UN Agency until his untimely death in 1946.

More about Fiorello LaGuardia | More about Ralph Bunche

For more information about the UN in Queens, please visit:

The Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flushing_Meadows_Corona_Park
An interesting and brief article on the basic history of the U.N. and important information on the Queens site of the U.N. is available in this free reference work.

Queens Tribune
http://www.queenstribune.com/guides/2005_PatchworkOfCultures/pages/Queens1stCapitol.htm
This local newspaper has an illustrated article on the history of the UN at Flushing Meadows.

Paumgarten, Nick. "Dept. Of Yesteryear: U.N. On Ice." New Yorker. 23 May 2005.
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/05/23/050523ta_talk_paumgarten
This article discusses the former Queens site of the UN and the prospects for the temporary relocation of the UN during the forthcoming renovations to the famous building at 42nd Street in Manhattan.

For more information, here is a bibliography on Fiorello LaGuardia and the UN in Queens.

More Information About Fiorello LaGuardia

Fiorello LaGuardia was born in 1882. His work took him to the positions at the American consulates in Budapest, Trieste and Fiume (Rijeka). When he returned to the US in 1906. he worked as an interpreter for the United States Immigration Service at Ellis Island. He studied law at New York University and was admitted to the bar the bar in 1910. In 1916 he was elected to the House of Representatives as a progressive Republican. The United States entered the first World War in 1917 and LaGuardia joined the United States Air Service .He served on the Italian-Austrian front. After the ceasefire on 4 October, 1918. President Wlson's amended his Fourteen Points Peace Program and it was accepted and the Armistice was signed on Nov. 11th 1918.
La Guardia returned to Congress. He was an opponent of Prohibition an advocate for women's right to vote and he called for an end to of child labor. He sponsored the 1932 The Norris LaGuardia act, which restricted the courts' power to labor ban strikes. He was elected NYC mayor for his first term in 1933and remained in office for twelve years He expanded various aspects of social reform and embraced the New Deal which helped lead the nation out of the Great Depression.
La Guardia decided against seeking re-election in 1945. The following year he became director general of the (UNRAA) The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. This agency was charged with medical social and welfare programs to benefit and assist the nations suffering from the effects of World War II.
Its unfinished work was turned over to the World Health Organization, The International Refugee Organization and the International Children's Emergency Fund (UN Children's Fund).
Fiorello La Guardia died on 20th September, 1947. His autobiography, Making of an Insurgent, was published posthumously in 1948.

From http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USARlaguardia.htm

For more information you may want to see these records from JSTOR.

Kesser, Thomas. "Fiorello H. LaGuardia." The History Teacher, Vol. 26, No. 2. (Feb.,1993), 151-159.
Stable URL: http://rpa.laguardia.edu:2048/login?url=http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0018-2745%28199302%2926%3A2%3C151%3AFHL%3E2.0.CO%3B2-P.

"Relief and Rehabilitation Organizations." International Organization, Vol. 1, No. 1. (Feb., 1947), 178-183.

More Information About Ralph Bunche

PBS. Ralph Bunche : The Man and The Myth: An American Odyssey.
http://www.pbs.org/ralphbunche/un.html
Fred Ritchin: DirectorZohar Nir-Amitin: Designer.Site Content and Production by William Greaves Inc.: Executive Producer/Louise Archambault: Producer Laetitia Kouassi: Associate Producer.

Compiled by:

Marie C. Spina
Library Media Resources Center
LaGuardia Community College
October 2005

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LaGuardia Community College Library Media Resources Center