RIOC Real Estate Committee Meeting Today On Master Leaseholder & Site For FDR Hope Memorial Statue In Southpoint Park

Image of Proposed Site For FDR Hope Memorial From Skycam USA

According to RIOC:

PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that a meeting of the Real Estate Development Advisory Committee of the RIOC Board of Directors will be held on Tuesday, April 27, 2010 at 5:30 p.m. at the RIOC administrative office, 591 Main Street, Roosevelt Island, New York. The agenda for the meeting will be:

1. Final discussion with Jones Lang LaSalle regarding the RFP for the master lease of the Main Street retail; and

2. Review of site approval for the FDR Hope Memorial within the Southpoint Public Open Space Project Area.

The FDR Hope Memorial is intended to be located in the Wild Gardens/Green Rooms area of Southpoint Park just north of the Renwick Ruins Smallpox Hospital and will depict President Franklin D. Roosevelt as he actually lived, in a wheelchair. According to FDR Hope Memorial Committee Member The Roosevelt Doctor:

The FDR HOPE MEMORIAL COMMITTEE is working to design and build a memorial to President Roosevelt that focuses on him as a disabled person who lived in the mainstream. Its mission statement reads:

President Franklin D Roosevelt is the inspiration for all who strive to overcome challenges. Roosevelt island was so named to reflect a commitment to an integrated community where the disabled move freely, live independently and develop to their fullest potential.
The FDR Hope Memorial will educate future generations about FDR and about Roosevelt Island, a vital community of “enabled” residents.

The intent is to have a statue of FDR sitting in a wheelchair or using crutches and to look something like this bronze statue from EIS Studios.


More images of a seated President Roosevelt including this one with Winston Churchill from Listicles are here.


Any of these seated FDR Images with some minor appropriate landscaping are far more suitable and inspiring for a FDR Memorial to be located on Roosevelt Island's Southpoint Park than the $50 million taxpayer supported, view killing, concrete and granite boondoggle proposed as the FDR Four Freedoms Park shown below.

Image From FDR Four Freedoms Park

For disclosure purposes, I am a member of the FDR Hope Memorial Committee and the views expressed herein about the FDR Four Freedoms Park are mine alone.

UPDATE 5/4 - The webcast of the meeting is now available.