United Nations Peace Plaza (Independence, Missouri) United Nations Peace Plaza (Independence, Missouri) The United Nations Peace Plaza in Independence, Missouri was unveiled on October 27, 1997, formally dedicated by U.N. General Secretary Kofi Annan on April 25, 2003, and is described by its creators as "the only memorial in the world to those persons serving in the Peacekeeping Forces of the United Nations". The 12.5-foot statue is named "Girl with Dove" by its sculptor, Tom Corbin, and in 2003, a four-foot miniature was gifted to the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. On 11 December 2006, after his final speech as Secretary-General, delivered at the
Headquarters of the United Nations International Library. In the late 1950s the Ford Foundation gave a grant to the United Nations for the construction of a new library building; Dag Hammarskjöld was also instrumental in securing the funding for the new building. The Dag Hammarskjöld Library was dedicated and renamed on November 16, 1961. The building was a gift from the Ford Foundation and is located next to the Secretariat at the southwest corner of the headquarters campus. The library holds 400,000 books, 9,800 newspapers and periodical titles, 80,000 maps and the Woodrow Wilson Collection containing 8,600 volumes of League of Nations documents and 6,500