Note to Correspondents

United Nations TO INAUGURATE NEW TOURS AT HEADQUARTERS ON 1 AUGUST

 

United Nations Headquarters is undergoing major renovations and modernization, and so is its Guided Tours operation.  As part of the United Nations Capital Master Plan, the New York landmark will be gutted and restored over the next five years to its original iconic image with infrastructure that is contemporary, safe, efficient and environmentally sound.

As the Organization’s Headquarters prepares for the Capital Master Plan, guided tours of the complex will be modified as of 1 August 2008 and limited to the General Assembly building.  The cost of the tours will be reduced and a fresh route introduced that wraps around the General Assembly Hall and extends into Conference Room 4, the proposed site of the Security Council while its permanent chamber is being renovated.

But that’s not all.  The new 45-minute tour will inaugurate a special section for younger audiences, called “Children’s Corner”, as well as a multimedia virtual tour of the United Nations’ six main organs, with pictorial highlights of the Organization’s history, structure, composition and offices around the world.   Showcased along the new tour route are updated exhibits of 60 years of peacekeeping, the work of the United Nations in achieving the Millennium Development Goals, a sampling of the gifts donated by United Nations Member States, and individual exhibits on disarmament, landmines, the Holocaust, human rights, indigenous peoples, decolonization and the question of Palestine, to name a few.  And tours will continue to visit the gathering place of the world and, in many eyes, the United Nations’ “visual identity”, the General Assembly Hall.

“The energy and promise of the Capital Master Plan has allowed us to explore new and creative ways to engage the thousands of visitors who take guided tours of United Nations Headquarters each week, reconciling logistical and safety imperatives with their wish to witness, and be a part of, a history that is ultimately their own,” notes Kiyo Akasaka, Head of the Department of Public Information, which oversees the tour operation at United Nations Headquarters.

The cost of the tour will be $12.50 for adults; $8.00 for seniors and students, and $6.50 for children.

For more information, please contact Dawn Johnston-Britton, e-mail:  Johnston-britton@un.org, tel.:  212 963 6984; or Isabelle Broyer, e-mail:  broyer@un.org, tel.:  212 963 9480.

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For information media • not an official record