Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park Grand Opening Today on Roosevelt Island

Today, the new Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park, located on the southern tip of 2-mile-long Roosevelt Island between the boroughs of Manhattan and Queens, opened to the public. The park is named after Roosevelt's State of the Union address in 1941, known as the Four Freedoms Speech. The speech was delivered before the United States got involved in World War II. Roosevelt said the way to justify the enormous sacrifice of war was to create a world centered on four essential human freedoms: freedom of speech and expression; freedom of worship; freedom from want; and freedom from fear. The words were later incorporated into the charter of the United Nations, which Roosevelt helped create.

The park consists of a 4-acre triangular expanse of green, flanked by 120 littleleaf Linden trees leading to a colossal bronze bust of Roosevelt at the threshold of a square white-granite open-air plaza.

The statue is a larger version of a 28-inch bust of Roosevelt, also a New York governor, created by American sculptor Jo Davidson. It sits in a stone niche on the back of which a passage from the Four Freedoms speech is carved. The statue sits a mere 300 yards across the river from the United Nations headquarters. (Information from the FDR Four Freedoms Park website).