At a recent meeting of RIOC's Southpoint Development Advisory Committee, the following presentation was read by Rona Silverbush, representing former Ambassador William vanden Heuvel, President of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, who was unable to attend.

I am sorry that I am unable to be with you today to discuss this important matter and to personally address questions regarding the history of the development of the Southernmost tip of this island as a memorial park honoring Franklin Delano Roosevelt - a history that I have been involved in since its inception - before this island was given its current name.

Those of you unfamiliar with the history of the memorial project may think that the tip of this island was chosen as the site for a memorial to FDR because the island was already named for him...not so. In 1970, the Roosevelt Institute (then known as the Four Freedoms Foundation) initiated the planning of a memorial to FDR in New York. The Four Freedoms Foundation entered into discussions with city and state leaders, including Edward Logue, president of the Urban Development Corporation, which was planning a new, self-contained community on what was then called Welfare Island. As a result of those discussions, the site on the southern tip of Welfare Island was selected for the memorial and because the island was to contain this memorial, the island was renamed in honor of FDR on September 24, 1973. Naming the Island for FDR was the first step in a project which was to culminate in the construction of the memorial on the Southern tip.

The announcement of these plans was first made on April 12, l972 at the Annual Award Dinner of the Four Freedoms Foundation, at which then-president of the Foundation Joseph Robinson said:

"I wish to announce that after consultations with Governor Rockefeller, Mayor Lindsay, Edward J. Logue, President of the New York State Urban Development Corporation, and August Hecksher, New York City Administrator of Parks, Recreation & Cultural Affairs, and other state and city officials, an understanding has been reached whereby approximately 2 acres of land on the southern tip of Welfare Island will be made available to the Four Freedoms Foundation, for the construction of an appropriate memorial to the late President, Franklin D. Roosevelt... The memorial, when completed, will be turned over to the New York City Park System or the National Park Service or other appropriate governmental agency for maintenance and care and the public's use..."

In July, l973, two months prior to the dedication ceremony, the New York Times ran an editorial announcing the memorial and the name change. The editorial stated:

"Even more than the name itself, the island is to have an appropriate tribute to FDR in the form of a memorial to be constructed at its southernmost point. Of all the spots in the country, this is surely the most suitable for the purpose. Standing there, the traveler coming to pay his respects will look squarely at the capitol of the United Nations which his vision encompassed, see in the river and the harbor beyond it the ships that so filled his life, and finally extend his gaze to the Atlantic Ocean which President Roosevelt saw as the bond and unifier of the Western World."

And I recall how at the dedication ceremony on September 24, 1973, Mayor Lindsay announced the plans for the memorial, publicly pledging the city's commitment to the memorial and using the rechristening of the island as the memorial's launching event.

As I'm sure you know, one of our century's greatest architects, Louis Kahn, was commissioned to design the memorial and did so shortly before his death. His design for the memorial has been called, "one of the noblest unbuilt projects in New York" by the New York Times. Indeed, the noted architect Robert Gatje has assured me that the architectural community is emphatically united in its determination that the project be built - the wait is far outweighed by the historic and artistic benefits to future generations of a Louis Kahn memorial to FDR.

Fund-raising commenced as soon as the project was conceived. In 1974, Governor Malcolm Wilson included $2,200,000 for the FDR Memorial in his budget message and the Four Freedoms Foundation asked Mayor Abraham Beame for an equal amount from New York City. The Four Freedoms Foundation planned to raise the remaining funds for the memorial from private sources (the estimated cost of the memorial at the time was $6,000,000), and had secured pledges totaling $250,000 from foundations. However, the financial crisis in New York City and New York State in the mid-70s prevented these plans from materializing.

Although the General Development Plan of 1990 for Roosevelt Island simply calls for a park at the end of the Island, the record clearly shows that the Urban Development Corporation, the original planners of the Roosevelt Island development, intended to build the FDR Memorial on that site. The participation of the city and state governments in the project before the fiscal crisis prevented further action and the commissioning and approval of the Kahn design indicate that all the parties involved made a commitment to building the Kahn-designed memorial on the designated site. In 1985, the FDR Memorial Commission appointed by Governor Mario Cuomo, and co-chaired by leading Republican and long-time Attorney General Louis Lefkowitz and by former New York City Mayor Robert F. Wagner, reviewed the site and plans for the memorial, and reaffirmed that commitment. The Commission unanimously recommended that "the Memorial designed for Roosevelt Island in the East River by the late Louis Kahn, one of America's greatest architects, be adopted and moved to completion with all possible speed."

Because of continuing fiscal difficulties, federal, state and city funding has not been available in recent years, but in these prosperous times, New York State, New York City and a partnership of private donors can surely be organized. Some progress has been made toward realizing the ultimate goal of building the memorial. The ruins of the old city hospital at the southern end of the memorial, have been torn down. And in 1994, RIOC filled, shaped and graded the site of the memorial in accordance with Kahn's design. It had also planned to rebuild the sea walls around the memorial site before its capital budget was cut.

As we know from the Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson and FDR memorials in Washington, the selection of a site, the designing of and the raising of funds to build memorials is a difficult and lengthy process. In the case of the FDR Memorial on Roosevelt Island, the architectural community and other interested parties are unanimous in their agreement that the site and the design are outstanding; the only remaining obstacle - one which can certainly be overcome - is the money with which to build it. In the interim, the site could be named Franklin D. Roosevelt Park and, as RIOC has demonstrated in the past, it could be used for special events in keeping with its ultimate purpose.

We are exploring the legal commitment made by the City and State to this project. I have personal knowledge of the moral commitment, made by the City and State in the earliest days of the project and reaffirmed time and again by both, to the creation of a Memorial to FDR on the Southernmost tip of the island. I trust that RIOC will not disregard history, and will honor that long-standing commitment by only entertaining those proposals for development of South Point which preserve the acreage at the tip set aside in the General Development Plan for its intended- and symbolically perfect - purpose...the long-awaited Memorial to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a son of New York and the greatest President of the twentieth century.