Excerpt from Franklin D. Roosevelt's Four Freedoms Speech from January 1941 etched in Mt. Airy, NC Granite.

"We have gained a lot of freedom, in civil rights and women's rights, the ability around the world to minimize human suffering with prosperity and healthcare, to minimize the cost of human tragedy. We have again been tested by fear, and too many of our neighbors here at home struggle to find freedom from want. This park should always remind us that those dreams are worth pursuing...Perhaps, ironically, it is altogether fitting that this day was delayed until a time when we knew we could never take the four freedoms for granted." -Former President Bill Clinton, 10/17/2012

   

In 1973 Mayor John Lindsay announced that a memorial park at the southern tip of Roosevelt Island for Franklin D. Roosevelt be created. Louis Kahn was selected as the architect and plans were completed. However, Kahn's sudden death in 1974 followed by NYC's fiscal crises of the 1970s diminished the priority of Four Freedoms Park. On October 24, 2012, the FDR Four Freedoms Park opened to the public; a project which began forty years ago.  

 

"Surely, in the light of history, it is more intelligent to hope rather than to fear, to try rather than not to try. For one thing we know beyond all doubt. Nothing has ever been achieved by the person who says, 'It can't be done.'" - Eleanor Roosevelt, 1960 

 

The Upper West Side Roosevelt connection is the Eleanor Roosevelt Memorial. The First Lady's statue rests adjacent to the Hudson River, with FDR's now-complete memorial on the East River. Experience the only Louis Kahn work in NYC, completed posthumously from the architect's original plans. This special tour will include a trip on the Roosevelt Island Tram, which offers unparalleled views of the Memorial and Manhattan skyline.    

 

Space is Limited. Reservations Required! 

$35 for "Steward" members, $40 for non-members 

*Co-Chair of the AIA NY Chapter's Architecture Tour Committee & VP of DOCOMOMO US-New York/Tri-State.

 All photos credited to Kelly Carroll, 2012