Greenwich and the Origins of the United Nations

Curator: Grady Turner
October 24, 2003 to March 28, 2004

UN's headquarters were very nearly developed as a large international city that would have absorbed much of Greenwich, Connecticut The exhibition offered a rare behind-the-scenes look at the decisions that helped to shape the UN in its formative years.

This exhibition went behind the heated debates to reveal the conversations held behind closed doors. Photographs, articles, maps and oral histories were brought together to investigate all sides of this contentious issue, which involved such influential figures as Eleanor Roosevelt, President Harry S. Truman, John D. and Nelson Rockefeller, Robert Moses and Allen Dulles. Assured by the U.S. federal government that any properties chosen for the UN headquarters could be claimed on its behalf, United Nations Organization delegates selected an area of Greenwich that would have displaced such prominent residents as Time magazine founder Henry Luce, Congresswoman Clare Boothe Luce, Wall Street banker Frank Altschul and band leader Benny Goodman. The citizens of Greenwich were stunned. No one had consulted them about the fate of their homes and their town. Some organized to oppose the proposed "UNOville," while others rallied to welcome it. For most of 1946, this controversy consumed the town of Greenwich.

Drawing from numerous sources, including never-before exhibited materials from the UN Archives, "No to UNOville!" told the remarkable story of how the UN lost its first battle -- for a home in Greenwich -- and came to be headquartered in New York City.