By Martha T. Moore and Benjamin Soloway
USA TODAY
NEW YORK — Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II stopped Tuesday for a brief but solemn visit in heat-oppressed New York City, speaking at the United Nations for the first time in more than half a century, laying a wreath at the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and meeting with families of those killed that day.
The queen last stood before the U.N. General Assembly in 1957, four years after she took the throne. Then, she told the diplomats Tuesday, the U.N. had just three overseas operations; it now has 26 missions staffed by 120,000 people.
“In my lifetime, the United Nations has moved from being a high-minded aspiration to being a real force for common good,” Elizabeth, 84, told the diplomats. “The waging of peace is the hardest form of leadership of all.”
Pointing out challenges the U.N. must face, the queen cited, as she has previously, the danger posed by climate change. “Careful account must be taken of the risks facing smaller, more vulnerable nations,” she said, including members of the Commonwealth, the 54-nation alliance headed by the queen, such as the low-lying Maldives in the Indian Ocean.
The queen laid a wreath at Ground Zero and met several families of those killed, including Lee Ielpi, a retired New York firefighter whose son Jonathan, also a firefighter, died. It was her second wreath laying of the day. She also left a tribute at a memorial to U.N. personnel killed in the 2003 bombing of their Baghdad headquarters.
Elizabeth officially opened the British Garden at Hanover Square, a park in Lower Manhattan dedicated to the 67 British citizens who died in the 9/11 attacks. There, she left 67 roses. The U.K. suffered more 9/11 losses than any other country save the U.S.
The queen’s son Prince Charles and grandson Prince Harry both have visited the garden, which has been open to the public for several years, but the queen’s visit marked the official opening.
“It is the ultimate compliment for Her Majesty to come here and open it,” said Rodney Johnson, vice chairman of the garden’s board of directors.
The visit is “most important for the families of the victims, who were the reason for creating this garden,” Johnson said. Some families traveled from as far as Scotland to attend Tuesday’s ceremony.
Among those gathered at the World Trade Center site, cameras at the ready, were Jim and Linda Scott from Highland, N.Y.
“It’s very important that the queen is here to honor her countrymen,” said Linda Scott, 66, a nurse. She and her husband have been avid royal watchers since they saw the broadcast of Elizabeth’s 1953 coronation as children.
“My whole grade school class came over to watch,” said Jim Scott, 67, a funeral home director who grew up in Bement, Ill. “We had the only television in town.”
Patricia Dare, born in England but a naturalized American after 30 years in the U.S, came to Hanover Square from her home in Mendham, N.J., to catch a peek of the queen waving through the window of a black SUV.
“When the queen visits,” she said, “You suddenly remember you’re British.”
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