Neighborhood

The twin towers of 860-870 United Nations Plaza rise in the heart of Manhattan’s Turtle Bay, an East Midtown neighborhood named for a crescent-shaped cove off the East River that, until the mid-1800s, stretched from about 45th Street to 48th Steet. A small stream, Turtle Creek, flowed into the cove from its source at the southeast corner of what is now Central Park.

During the 1700s, the land near the cove was dotted with large farms and prosperous estates, most notably Turtle Bay Farm, from about 41st Street to 49th Street, and the Beekman Farm, just to the north. Their western border was the famous Eastern Post Road, running approximately along what today is Third Avenue.

The Beekman family’s mansion, called Mount Pleasant, stood on their property’s highest ground, at what today is the intersection of First Avenue and 51st Sreet. Historically, the Beekman’s land is probably best known for its role during the Revolutionary War, when it was taken over by the British and was the site of the trial and sentencing of the patriot spy Nathan Hale.

Stories abound about notable residents living in the area during the 1800s. In the 1840s, newspaper publisher Horace Greeley owned seven acres between 48th and 49th Streets, and author and poet Edgar Allen Poe lived for a time near 47th Street. Poe was known to row out to the two rocky islets south of Blackwell’s Island (now Roosevelt Island), and swim off their shores.

After 1850, the area’s farming came to an end when New York City’s newly devised straight-line street grid construction made its way northward from downtown Manhattan. Turtle Bay Farm and Beekman Farm were broken up, and new blocks developed with rows of brownstone houses that became home to well-to-do families.

But that era was not to last. Construction of the streets had disturbed the flow of the Turtle Creek, and it began to back up, turning the area swampy and unhealthy. As a remedy, the city built an underground drainage system and filled in the little Turtle Bay. Almost overnight, the riverfront landfill became an industrial site, home to stockyards, slaughterhouses, breweries and a coal yard. The pretty brownstones were turned into rooming houses for the workers on the site. And then, elevated rail lines – the “Els” – were built over Second and Third avenues, turning surrounding blocks dark and dirty. With that, East Midtown began a long period of decline, not to be reversed until the next century.

The transformation of the area began in 1919, when a wealthy woman with an adventurous spirit, Charlotte Hunnewell Martin, bought a group of 20 old brownstones on 48th and 49th streets between Second and Third avenues, and converted them into townhouses surrounding a central garden. She called her development “Turtle Bay Gardens.” The charming houses almost immediately attracted some of the city’s most accomplished and illustrious names – lawyers, writers, and actors. Over the years, residents have included actress Katharine Hepburn, essayist E.B. White, journalist Dorothy Thompson, the Broadway legend Stephen Sondheim, music’s Bob Dylan, and many others.

Meanwhile, Beekman Place drew attention after the well-known landscape architect, Ellen Biddle Shipman, bought a brownstone at the north corner of 50th Street and the East River and converted it into her home and office. Development in the enclave soon flourished.

Finally, the neighborhood would get a huge boost when the city dismantled the Second and Third avenue Els, opening up the streets that for decades had been under the shadow of the overhead rail lines.

Still, in the early 1940s, the dirty industrial site remained along the East River. But that would change suddenly when, in late 1946, John D. Rockefeller Jr. offered to purchase six blocks of riverfront south of 48th Street, and donate it to the newly formed United Nations for its world headquarters. Soon, the site was cleared and, by 1952, the UN complex of buildings was completed. A team of international architects, chaired by New Yorker Wallace Harrison, designed the site’s three main structures – the tall Secretariat, and the General Assembly and Conference buildings. Suddenly, East Midtown was catapulted into the New York City spotlight, with a fresh and forward-looking reputation.

But UN architect Harrison was not quite finished with his designs for the area. Originally, he had envisioned a fourth major UN building at the north end of the UN site, just south of 48th Street, to house member-states’ diplomatic missions. He believed this would cordon off the property, making it feel self-contained. But the UN member-states didn’t want the additional building. And so, some years later, Harrison’s firm, Harrison and Abramovitz, designed 860-870 United Nations Plaza and its office base, 866, to rise on land just north of the UN property. His vision was finally realized. In fact, the original offering brochure for 860-870 United Nations Plaza points out that the apartment complex completes “the architectural concept envisioned in the original plans for the United Nations.”

Since the late 1960s, when 860-870 opened, many other high-rise apartment buildings have gone up in the neighborhood, joining the brownstones of the mid-1800s and some notable 1920s apartment buildings. But with its location just north of what was once the Turtle Bay cove, and overlooking the modern UN buildings, 860-870 United Nations Plaza will always hold its own unique place in the history of the area.

Pamela Hanlon, a resident of 860/870, is the author of Manhattan’s Turtle Bay: Story of a Midtown Neighborhood.