> The United Nations Headquarters rests on 18 acres overlooking the East River of New York City, at 1st Avenue, between 45th and 46th Street. Construction began in 1949 and was completed within three years. Initially, the building was meant to be located outside of the city, but at the behest of Robert Moses and the Rockefeller family, the headquarters remained in Manhattan. At the time it was built, the United Nations complex represented the architecture of the future in its design and use of glass and aluminum. The placement and direction of the windows optimized sunlight throughout the day.

> Made from stainless steel and glass in a curtain-wall design, New York's Seagram building was newly constructed and debuted by the time production began on North by Northwest. The Seagram building sits on Park Avenue at 53rd Street. It housed the Seagram Company's American Headquarters and also featured two of Manhattan's finest restaurants - The Four Seasons & The Brasserie - as well as public areas for employees and visitors to picnic, relax, and enjoy the open air. Its pioneering design and use of space forever changed the architectural model for corporate office towers.

> Since 1941, Mount Rushmore adopted a look-but-do-not-touch policy. The scenes in North by Northwest set on Mount Rushmore were actually filmed on a studio sound stage using an ambitious replica of the monument courtesy of Robert Boyle. The film's protagonists nevertheless allow audiences to vicariously live out a resounding dream of many tourists: to climb upon the faces of Mount Rushmore. The actual monument at Mount Rushmore was sculpted into the sacred Black Hills of South Dakota belonging to the Lakota. Construction on the monument began in 1927 and was completed in 1941. More than 400 workers logged in countless hours towards building the monument. The sculpted visages of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln (representing the first 130 years of U.S. history) were designed to face the Southwest direction of the mountain so as to receive the greatest amount of sunlight during the day. A stairway was originally planned to let visitors climb up the monument, but there was not enough granite to put the plan into motion.

> Built more than a century ago, New York's Plaza Hotel was a glowing fixture of Manhattan high society. In 1907, the year of the hotel's grand debut, the very first guest to check-in there was Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt. Half a century later, while filming on location in New York for North by Northwest, Cary Grant also stayed at the Plaza Hotel, where some of the first scenes for the movie were conveniently filmed.