13. Ralph Bunche Park honors UN history
Ralph Bunche Park, a small park located across from the United Nations, was named in 1979 after the first African American winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. The park was dedicated as New York City’s first Peace Park along the stretch of First Avenue known as United Nations Plaza. The park is connected to Tudor City in neighboring Murray Hill via a granite staircase whose wall features the famous quotation from Isaiah: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” The steps are named for Natan Sharansky, a Soviet dissident and chairman for the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy.
Bunche received the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize for his mediation in the decades-long Israel-Palestine conflict, negotiating an armistice between Egypt and Israel in 1948. For his work in the Sinai, the Congo, Yemen, Cyprus, and Bahrain, Bunche was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963. Bunche’s friend Daniel LaRue Johnson dedicated to Bunche a stainless-steel obelisk at the park called Peace Form One. The park also contains a plaque honoring civil rights activist Bayard Rustin.