1974Manhattan, New YorkCommercial

One United Nations Plaza / UN Plaza Hotel and office building

A 1974 construction job whose hotel interior later became a New York City landmark.

One United Nations Plaza and Two United Nations Plaza (the glass towers), with the New United States Mission to the United Nations in front (beige tower in center). Photographed in 2021; a current view, not a construction-period photograph.

Current view · 2021 · Photo: Percival Kestreltail · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Source

01The story

Why this project matters

Project identity: Verified
Kelly connection: Family source
Masonry scope: Probable

Rita’s list

Rita Bartscherer’s handwritten entry: U.N. Hotel - Office Building — 1974

Transcription: U.N. Hotel - Office Building — 1974

Recorded by Rita Bartscherer · Bartscherer family record

Entry

KM-106

Sheet

1 of two

As written

“U.N. Hotel - Office Building — 1974”

One UN Plaza combined UN offices and a hotel; its Ambassador Grill and lobby are now designated interiors.

Why it matters

Joseph's masonry project sits inside a building whose hotel lobby and restaurant later became preservation causes — a direct echo of the Lever House theme.

02What Kelly did

What Kelly did here

Kelly connection

Family source

Scope confidence

Probable

Likely: most plausibly interior CMU/block at shafts, service cores, hotel back-of-house, fire-rated partitions and support spaces. Do not imply exterior brick masonry: One UN Plaza is a late-modern steel/glass tower whose visible envelope is glass.

This scope is recorded as probable, not documented. It is a disciplined reading of the building and the trade practice of the period, not a contract-level record of Kelly’s work.

03Who built it

The construction team

01Architect
Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates

04What happened

What happened to it

Landmarked interior

On the map

1 United Nations Plaza, New York, NY 10017

Maps / Street View →View on the archive map →

Landmarked interior

This record

Sources ↗Map ↗Suggest an update →

Sources

3 citedOpen →

What this record rests on

01
usmodernist.org
Y 2007 fall
02
docomomo-us.org
ambassador grill lounge and one un plaza hotel lobby
03
commons.wikimedia.org
File:One United Nations Plaza.jpg

Image credits

Percival Kestreltail · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons · Taken on 1
One United Nations Plaza and Two United Nations Plaza (the glass towers), with the New United States Mission to the United Nations in front (beige tower in center). Photographed in 2021; a current view, not a construction-period photograph.

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