My wife in the garden at the United Nations (where we both worked) probably around 1979. The garden had a spectacular collection of cherry trees, I believe donated by the government of Japan.

The United Nations recently went through a major renovation. While the building was being re-modeled a significant number of offices and conference rooms had to be relocated and of course space is very much at a premium in mid-town Manhattan. Temporary buildings had to be built in the gardens.

According to an article in the New York Sun entitled One Cannot Tell a Lie: U.N. May Fell Its Cherry Trees:

When the environmentally oriented United Nations launches its ambitious building-refurbishing project next month, dozens of stately cherry trees, among others, will have to be cut down, the man charged with executing the renovation plan, Michael Adlerstein, said yesterday in an admission reminiscent of young George Washington’s “I cannot tell a lie.” The $1.876 billion Capital Master Plan renovation project is scheduled to be launched May 5 with a ground-breaking ceremony for a temporary building that will house conference rooms for diplomats during the six-year construction period. The temporary conference building will be erected in the well-manicured gardens of the northern portion of the U.N. campus, an area known as the North Lawn, where rows of trees were planted 30 years ago among rare artistic artifacts and perennial and annual flowering plants.

Secretary-General Ban has raised environmental issues to the top of the U.N. agenda and made them a central theme of his administration. Yesterday, Mr. Ban said “global warming” was one of the issues he planned to discuss with Pope Benedict XVI, who is scheduled to visit Friday. Mr. Ban is Korean, and many in the region he hails from cherish the short-lived cherry blossom season and travel to areas where the trees are abundant to adore the blooms.

The cherry trees in full bloom yesterday under the U.N. flag are doomed. As the temporary building is being erected on the North Lawn, “25 out of 300 trees will have to come down, including cherry trees,” Mr. Adlerstein acknowledged yesterday.

Most likely taken with a Minolta Hi-Matic 7sii, my first serious camera given to me by my wife around this time.