East 44th St, Turtle Bay

44th starts its run through Turtle Bay like many of the streets in this neighborhood: at the UN headquarters. It takes a pretty sizable chunk of land on the East River. It's not the most oppressive looking building in the city but it's not exactly the most attractive stretch of Manhattan either. This particular street, however, has UN buildings on the other side of 1st Avenue which take up a big chunk of that block as well. The UN Church, UN Plaza and Unicef buildings are all on the west side of 1st so it makes the block have even less of a neighborhood feel than it already has.
Across 2nd Avenue a little bit of a neighborhood begins to take shape (but not much). There's a pet groomer, a couple of little decent restaurants and a local cafe that used to be the famous journalist bar, Costello's. It's nice to have a neighborhood cafe, but I think if Costello's were still here, it would make the street a bit more lively. There are a couple of apartment buildings here but they look like midtown apartment buildings rather than cool neighborhood ones and that doesn't do anything to help the feel of the street. It seems like no one actually lives here.
Leading up to Grand Central-- one of the greatest places ever-- there are more UN buildings, a little Irish hotel and a couple more commercial looking residence buildings which makes this street, as a whole, pretty depressing to live on. There's not much of anything to do or eat, barely any green, and nobody is milling about or sitting outside on a nice day. It's a really midtown kind of street that I wouldn't want to live on at all.

If you have the children on holiday with you, do you ever wish you could have some help keeping the peace? Who better to ask for help than the United Nations with their handy location on First Avenue being one of the major attractions of making this a stop on your travels. The building is such a famous landmark that seeing it close up is like stepping into the movies or news stories and it’s a great way to get out of New York. Yes, steeping past the United Nations gates means you are no longer on American soil which is another great fact to impress the kids with.

This is home to the United Nations and a great day trip for the kids or schools. Children can experience how languages are translated and also develop an interest in flags of various countries.
It is a good start for young child to begin a flag collection with stamps or cards.
There is something for everyone here and is definitely worth the travel to get to.