Ralph Bunche Park

Ralph Bunche Park is a small pocket park on First Avenue at East 43rd Street in the Turtle Bay neighborhood, directly across from the United Nations headquarters. The park is named for Ralph Bunche, the American diplomat who in 1950 became the first African American and the first person of color to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Bunche received the Nobel Prize for his mediation of the 1949 armistice agreements between Israel and the Arab states, a diplomatic achievement that helped prevent a wider regional war. He went on to serve as Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, making him one of the highest-ranking American officials in the organization.

The park's location directly opposite the UN makes it a symbolically powerful site for honoring a man who devoted his career to international peace and cooperation. Bunche's career embodied the ideals that the United Nations was founded to advance, and his groundbreaking achievements as a Black diplomat challenged racial barriers in American public life.

The park features a sculpture by Daniel LaRue Johnson titled 'Peace Form One,' an abstract work that reinforces the park's theme of international harmony. Benches and plantings provide a small contemplative space in the shadow of the UN complex.

Ralph Bunche Park is one of several small parks and memorials in the Turtle Bay area that reflect the neighborhood's unique identity as the home of the United Nations, creating a corridor of international symbolism along First Avenue that is unlike any other streetscape in Manhattan.