FDR Memorial Boondoggle At Roosevelt Island's Southpoint Park Receives Puny $500 Thousand Dollars In Federal Funds Secured By Congresswoman Maloney
Update 9/13 - Image of View From Southpoint Park That Will Be Blocked By FDR Memorial Sculpture Room From the Main Street WIRE
Received a press release today from Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney's office announcing that she has secured $500,000 in federal funds for the FDR Memorial Boondoggle at Roosevelt Island's Southpoint Park.
At first, I was angry to learn that more taxpayer funds were going into this mausoleum that destroys beautiful panoramic East River waterfront and New York City Skyline views and replaces open green space with cement.
Then I realized what a paltry sum from the Feds - $500,000, when you consider the $50 million or more total cost of the project, the $4 million in State funds, $4.5 million in City funds and even the $500,000 from the Manhattan Borough President committed to date - is not an overwhelming show of support for this ill conceived project which was described by art critic Thomas B. Hess when the design was first proposed in the 1970's this way:
... the sort of political edifice that the Italian fascists loved and Speer perfected for the glory of the Third Reich... The site itself is treated heartlessly. What was a modest, picturesquely rugged shoreline has been disciplined to straight lines and symetrical angles that have no significance beyond the alarming one of man's ability to impose a meaningless geometry on nature. The ultimate irony is that Roosevelt, who fought totalitarians to the death, is commemorated in the harsh style propogated by the dictators.
Commenting on this horrible design for Southpoint Park, some Curbed readers remarked:
(one word) ... HORRIBLE!!!FAREWELL NATURE!!! - We are relinquishing something that actually looked like the "tip of an island" that only needed minor grooming to keep it looking natural and beautiful. I visited the southern tip many times (seeing art installations, etc.) and enjoyed every visit because I really felt that I was on a remote island, and I could sit on the hill and have a casual picnic and watch the sky. NOW??? WTF??? This is a REAL TRAGEDY and PURE SHIT !!! As much as I hate to say it, I would have preferred a Trump Hotel on the site to this __???__ (something so disturbingly ugly that I am lost for words) .
What an ugly park design.and:
It looks like a concentration camp. Ugly ugly ugly.If the intent of the FDR Memorial is truly to honor President Franklin Roosevelt and not the designer of the project Louis Kahn, it could have been accomplished with a simple statue of FDR sitting in a wheelchair or using crutches and look something like this bronze statue from EIS Studios.
The first granite delivery for the mausoleum room is expected on Monday. Will have more on all this next week.
Below is the press release from Ms. Maloney's office:
Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan & Queens) today announced that she had successfully secured $500,000 in this year’s federal budget to support the creation of Four Freedoms Park on the southern tip of Roosevelt Island.UPDATE 9/13- Later this afternoon, New York State Governor David Paterson and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg will come to Roosevelt Island to welcome the arrival of the Granite Foundation Stones for the FDR Memorial Boondoggle. According to the event's invitation:“The Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park will be a world-class amenity and attraction for Roosevelt Islanders, New Yorkers, and visitors from around the globe, and I am proud to have spearheaded the successful effort to secure federal funds to support its creation,” said Congresswoman Maloney, who has represented Roosevelt Island in Congress since 1993.
“It is completely fitting that the federal government will be providing support for a park and statue of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the only memorial to one of our nation’s greatest leaders in the city that he and his wife Eleanor called home for so many years,” said Congresswoman Maloney.
“The Four Freedoms Park will be an extraordinary civic space honoring the president who led us through the Great Depression and the cataclysmic events of World War II,” she said.Congresswoman Maloney led the effort to secure the appropriation in the U.S. House of Representatives. It was included in the Fiscal Year 2010 Transportation and Housing & Urban Development appropriations bill.
First envisioned in 1973 by the late Governor Nelson Rockefeller and the last project ever designed by the world-renowned architect Louis Kahn, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park will encompass 4.5 acres of open space on Roosevelt Island’s East River waterfront in the heart of New York City. It will include walkways lined with trees, a statue of the Franklin D. Roosevelt, and a granite monument symbolizing the “four freedoms” of the late President’s famous speech describing the four basic freedoms to which all persons enjoyed a right: freedom of speech and expression; freedom of religion; freedom from want; and freedom from fear.
The park’s construction is being managed by the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park LLC, led by the Chair of its Board of Directors, William J. vanden Heuvel, and its President and Chief Executive Officer, Sally Minard.
... 24 monolithic stones will be barged up the East River to the Park. The stones, 12" x 6" x 6", 36 tons each will be off-loaded by crane onto the site to form the foundation of what architect Louis B. Kahn called the "Room"...Others call it the Death Room Mausoleum.
The Main Street WIRE photo at top of post is of the panoramic view of the East River Waterfront that will forever be lost once the granite "death room" is constructed.
Sad day for Roosevelt Island.
