UN- Lord Byron and the hole in the territory of NY state

New York state is the only state with a hole in the territory. The United Nations building, located in New York City on First Avenue between East 46th and East 48th Streets, maintains an extraterritorial status, and is, therefore, not technically part of the United States. 

 67 years ago, on October 24 the United Nations came into force when the five permanent members of the security council ratified the charter that had been drawn up earlier that year. These members were: France, the Republic of China, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States. The 24th October became an the International United Nations Day. 

 

US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt first suggested using the name United Nations to refer to the Allies of World War II. The legend says that Winston Churchill, a great lover of poetry, recited the lines of the Lord Byron poem “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”, to Franklin Roosevelt and his granddaughter on a visit to Washington, D.C. in 1944.
Byron’s poem contains the lines:
Millions of tongues record thee,
and anew Their children’s lips shall echo them,
and say, 'Here, where the sword united nations drew,
Our countrymen were warring on that day !'

The first official use of the term occurred on 1 January 1942 with the Declaration by the United Nations. Planning for the building’s construction began in 1947. United Nations had dreamed of constructing an independent city for its new world capital. Dozens of American cities and towns lobbied intensely for the honor of becoming “capital of the world,”. In her book “Capital of the World: The Race to Host the United Nations,” Charlene Mires identifies 248 localities that vied in varying degrees to host the international organization’s headquarters.

 One of the most interesting proposals came from South Dakota. In November 1945, the Black Hills group from South Dacota released a plan for its proposed United Nations headquarters that looked as if an enormous extraterrestrial community. The proposed structure featured 1 million square feet of office space, an auditorium that could seat 20,000 people and a tower topped by a globe as a symbol of the organization’s international activities. There was parking for 10,000 cars, hotels and a lakeside recreational spot. The surrounding mountains were to be used to build little village retreats for each nation. The leader of the group, Spanish war veteran who lost his son in WW2 flew to London in 1945 to make his case directly to the United Nations. He also offered 100 square miles of tax-free land. But commission decided that the United Nations declined the project.  

A group of New Yorkers, headed by businessman Nelson Rockefeller successfully courted Coordinator of Construction Robert Moses and convinced him that New York would make the best location. Nelson Rockefeller’s father, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., donated $8.5 million to purchase the land. “New York is a center where people from all lands have always been welcomed and where they have shared common aspirations and achievements. It is my belief that this City affords an environment uniquely fitted to the task of the United Nations…” said John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

In 1947, the UN commissioned Wallace K. Harrison to lead the international design team to create their new world headquarters. Architects from each of the founding nations came to New York to take part in the design of the United Nations. The team started working at the beginning of 1947 at an office in Rockefeller Centre. They elaborated 50 different schemes that were then criticized, analyzed and reworked by the whole team.

Oscar Niemeyer , a Brazilian architect , was the youngest member of the team. He was 40 years old. Later in 1960, Niemeyer designed the civic buildings for Brazil's new capital, which was built in the centre of the country, far from any existing cities.

Centrosouz, Mosow

The final plan 23W, drawn up by Oscar Niemeyer, was adopted by all members of the board. It consists of a complex with four buildings: the Secretariat building, the General Assembly building, the Conference building and the Dag Hammarskjöld Library. The green glass-curtain tower, the first of its kind in New York, contrasts starkly with the 1920s buildings of Tudor City nearby.

Niemeyer collaborated with the French architect Le Corbusier to create the scheme. A Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret was his real name) was 20 years older than Niemeyer. Le Corbusier rejected the preposition to build the Palace of the Soviets in Moscow in 1931, but built Tsentrosoyuz in 1933 (btw, I think it is ugly). The only building Le Corbusier ever designed in North America was the Carpenter Center for Visual Arts in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Niemeyer and Le Corbusier combined their previous projects into a single scheme. The UN skyscraper was the first major International Style building to be constructed in New York. The international style was chosen by the board members as it symbolized a new start after the war. This 550-foot tall structure has become a worldwide symbol of the United Nations. In 1971 The General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring that United Nations Day shall be an international holiday and recommending it be observed as a public holiday by all United Nations member states. O... Where is my holiday?

Marquand : The history and new life

The Marquand, a 14-story residence at 11 East 68th Street, Manhattan, turned 100 in 2013. 
Henry Gurdon Marquand  was one of the great art collectors of the 19th century. 

After assisting his brother   in the family jewelry Marquand worked as a banker, a Wall Street broker, and a railroad executive and  accumulated a large fortune. 

He was the treasurer and the president  of the Metropolitan Museum of Art for 13 years  from 1889.  

In 1889 Mr. H. G. Marquand donated a collection of paintings by Old Masters and artists of the English school of the highest value. In 1891 he donated $15.000 to purchase a collection of Grecian, Roman and Mediaeval glass.

Marquand Mansion on Madison( destroyed)

 In 1881 Marquand commissioned his friend the eminent architect Richard Morris Hunt to design a mansion for him in New York City. Morris Hunt built Petit Chateau for The William  Vanderbilt on the northwest corner of 52nd Street and Fifth Avenue and the Breakers, the magnificent estate for Cornelius Vanderbilt in Newport , Rhode Island. 

Linden Gate ( burned down)

It was Hunt's fourth project for Henry.  Nine years earlier Hunt had built Marquand a summer residence, Linden Gate  in Newport, Rhode Island. (The house burned down in 1973). 

Hunt built a four-story mansion and two smaller dwellings next to it on the northwest corner of East Sixty-eighth Street and Madison Avenue in 1884, but  it took several more years, however, to complete the interior. 

Satee from the mansion (in Met museum)

The rooms of the Marquand mansion were arranged in a rectangular plan around the centrally located hall, which was one of the most important spaces in any nineteenth-century home. Each room was decorated in a different historical style, forming an appropriate background for Maquand's  collection.

 Henry Gurdon Marquand  died in New York City at the age of 82. His   collection and rare books were sold in 1903. The house was sold in 1909 and again in 1912. 

New York Times reported: “The famous Marquand house…has been sold and will be torn down early in April, to make room for a big apartment house.” Most of its decorations were destroyed.

In 1913 the architect   Herbert Lucas built brick a and terracotta u-shaped 11- story  building  with its courtyard entrance and apartments of seven to 16 rooms. 

Lucas put escutcheons with the letter “M” on the third floor, and advertisements for “Marquand House” evoked the fame of the vanished mansion. The apartments on the first several floors of the Marquand were standard, and  the apartments on the upper floors were larger.  There were also 20 servant’s rooms on the roof.  Six-room apartments at the Marquand were $165 per month; 13-room apartments, $580. 

In 2013, one hundred years after the building was built  rentals were converted into super luxury condominiums  by HFZ Capital.

The 11 East 68th Street building’s new condos  were on  the market from  June 2013, with 22 condos ranging in price from $15 million to $40 million.

The Marquand’s two penthouses with Central park views, one with six bedrooms and another with seven hit the market in October with $43 million and $46 million price tags, respectively.

 

Read more: "The Once and Future Marquand" in New York Times

Russians on Park Avenue: Vyshinskiy and Khruschev.

Pyne-Davison Row, located on Park Avenue between East 68th and East 69th Streets is the name for four Georgian mansions built between the years 1909 and 1926.
One of them, 680 Park Avenue, which was the first house on the block, was completed in 1909.  It was  built  for Percy Rivington Pyne, a wealthy banker from an old New York family.
The building was designed by the same company  that built Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn and New York Public Library. 
Percy Pyne died in 1929 and   the house was sold in 1947 to the Chinese Delegation to the United Nations and   immediately resold   to the Soviet Mission to the United States, that occupied the building from 1948 to 1963.

The famous state prosecutor of Joseph Stalin's Moscow trials Vyshinskiy,  who was the Soviet Foreign Minister from 1949 to 1953,  died on November 22, 1954  during breakfast in this building.  Official version was 'heart attack'  but historical believe that Visinskiy was poisoned  by the member of a secret mission arrived  a week before his death - he knows too many secrets. Policemen were not allowed to enter the building   and  on the very next day the body was  delivered by special flight to Moscow.

Another famous person who lived in 680 Park Ave is Russian  Premier Nikita Khrushchev. In 1960 he was  with a 25 day visit to US.  The day after arrival over the breakfast he asked what time it could be at Moscow. It was 7 AM in New York and 3PM  in Moscow. Mr. Khrushchev commented: "Mother Nature itself put Russia ahead America in time and we will get ahead America in all other respects as well".

Fidel Castro, who was Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and President from 1976 to 2008, met with Mr. Khrushchev at this building  in September 1960.  Castro led a delegation to New York City to address the United Nations General Assembly. He  stayed  at the Theresa Hotel in Harlem.  On September 26, Castro delivered a blistering attack on what he termed American "aggression" and "imperialism." His visit and lengthy public denunciation marked the final breaking point in relations between the U.S. and Cuba. In January 1961, the Eisenhower administration severed all diplomatic relations with Cuba.

The central doorway  had a porch with a wrought iron balcony, which provided a platform for a press conference with Nikita Khrushchev when he stayed there to visit the United Nations in 1960.

Turning the balcony into what The New York Times called “an impromptu Soviet forum,” the Premier hurled insults, sang a portion of the “Internationale”,  and tackled issues from China to the arms race.
The shoe that the world thinks Khrushchev banged at the United Nations  Oct. 13, 1960.  is one of history's most iconic symbols.
The Soviet Mission moved out in May of 1964 to larger headquarters on 136 East 67Th Street.  Khrushchev remained in power until 1964.

Six months later apartment house builders made plans to demolish 680 and 684 on Park Avenue.
The second house to be razed, 684 Park Avenue, was formerly occupied by the Institute of Public Administration.

In January of 1965, after the interior demolition of 680 and 684 Park Avenue had already begun, Marquesa de Cuevas (Margaret Strong de Larrain )the   granddaughter of John D. Rockefeller, purchased the mansions, along with an adjacent house located at 49 East 68th Street. The purchase freed the houses from the hands of real estate developer  for a price of 2 million dollars.

Marquesa later donated mansion at 680 Park Avenue to the Center for Inter-American Relations, a private organization for fostering cultural and trade relations between the United States and Latin America. She donated the second building, a mansion at 684 Park Avenue, to the Spanish Institute, a nonprofit cultural organization for furthering friendship between the United States and Spain.

In 1966 the architectural firm of Walker O. Cain & Associates directed restoration of the interior in the style of the original building. The ripped-out plank floors and exquisite marble mantles were traced down, reinstalled and the restoration was complete.

When the house was dedicated in 1967, among the 500 guests was Mrs. C. Suydam Cutting, who fifty years earlier had walked down the grand staircase for the last time as Mary Pyne, the wife of  Percy Pyne.  Mrs. C. Suydam Cutting died in died in 1983.

The building was designated a New York City Landmark in 1970 and is listed in the National Register of Historical Places.

If you like you can have you wedding or any private event in the same hall where  Nikita Khrushchev hold parties.

Billionaire Alexander Rovt and historic mansion on Upper East Side.

18 East 68

18 East 68

The house on 18 East 68, Sloan Mansion, was built with a scandal and was sold with a scandal. The house  was built  by mansion designer C. P. H. Gilbert for the  Henry Sloan who settled there after his scandalous divorce.  

Henry T. Sloane was a son of a founder of  W & J Sloane carpeting company that provided  carpeting for  the White House  and  Waldorf- Astoria Hotel. Just two years before the divorce Henry built a beautify house on East 72.  His wife had an affair and got married again several  hours after divorce.  Mr. Sloane moved into the house on East 68  house  with his two young daughters.

18 East 68 (August 2013)

There were  30 room in this limestone mansion with  17 baths, three terraces, 17-foot ceilings and 11 fireplaces.  In the middle of the XX century the house was sold and divided into nine small apartments.

The group of investors   bought the house in 2007  for around  20 million, renovated it  and return it back to marker for 64 million. The price went down in 2009 and  later dropped to $37,900,000. By May of 2011 the owners had defaulted in over $28 million in loans and Henry Sloane's mansion was sold at a foreclosure auction to Alex  Rovt.

Alexander Rovt was born 1953 in  the Jewish family in Mukachevo, Ukraine.  He attended Lvov State University  and has a PhD in international economics.    In 1985, he fled to the United States with his wife Olga  and settled in Brooklyn. He went to work in a kosher deli.  In 1988 Rovt worked for  the small company named  IBE (international barter exchange )Trade. The founder of IBE outsider states with little hard currency ( such as  Uganda after its 1980s civil   or Romania under Ceauşescu) and  accepted payment in commodities like coffee or iron rocks. Fertilizer was an ideal barter commodity, and the Soviet Union had made tons of it, and Rovt was the  entrée into the closed economy of the Soviet Union.

IBE’s trades carried significant risk. Rovt and his business partner  eventually bought out IBE and the company  shifted to a more traditional model, buying and shipping fertilizer around the world.
In mid-1990s Mister Rovt has owned a large house in  Mill Basin, waterfront neighborhood in Brooklyn. In 1997 he built yeshiva The Zvi Dov Roth Academy  ( 3300 Kings Hwy, Brooklyn, NY 11234) and named it after his the grandfather.

232 East 63

In September 2005 he paid $4,700,000 for a 25-foot wide red-brick Georgian townhouse on East 63rd Street  (232 East 63rd ) with attached  car garage.  Rovt spent the next five years on an extensive and expensive renovation. The five-story, 12,000-square-foot building is constructed out of reinforced concrete,  like a bunker faced with brick, and its windows have retractable bulletproof shades. There is full swimming pool in the house with gym, a massage room, sauna and steam. The house has of five outdoor spaces, five bedrooms and twelve baths.

Pool at 232 East 63

The house was put on the market in  May 2011 with an asking price of $27,000,000. According to Zillow the house is still ,on the marker with the price of $22 million. 

And only a month  later in June 2011 Alex Rovt bought   historical Sloane Mansion, at 18 East  68, off 5 Avenue, in the heart of  the upscale Upper East Side. 

14 Wall Street

In April 2012 Mr. Rovt purchased the historical  landmark skyscraper at 14 Wall Street for $303 million, in cash, without a broker.  Bankers Trust Building with its pyramidal roof is one of the great towers that define the lower Manhattan.  It  was built in 1910-1912  and was the tallest bank building in the world when it was completed.  I told about the building in one of my older posts.

Rovt told that he had set aside another $300 million to $400 million  to make additional residential and commercial buys in Manhattan. So let’s wait for his next purchase…