Category: Monument  |  Rating :

eReview: Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial

Location: Washington, D.C.

Review by R MUSTO

The most recently completed presidential monument is the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial. President Roosevelt guided the country through the Great Depression and World War II. The FDR Memorial completed in 1997 is located along the Tidal Basin, halfway between the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials.

The FDR Memorial consist of five outdoor rooms, the rooms are one for each of FDR’s terms as President and Prologue Room. Upon entering the Prologue Room visitors are greeted by a statue of FDR seated in a wheelchair. The rooms have walls of red South Dakota Granite, carved with quotations of FDR. Though out the rooms are several waterfalls and quite pools with sculptures of the Fireside Chat, a Rural Couple, a Breadline, Eleanor Roosevelt, and FDR besides his dog.

Lawrence Halprin designed the FDR Memorial, which also includes the work of several American artists, Leonard Baskin, Neil Estern, Robert Graham, Thomas Hardly and George Segal, along with master stone carver John Benson.

The bookstore located at the FDR Memorial provides visitors with books, pins, patches, maps, posters and prints.

For more information on the FDR memorial visit the website: www.nps.gov/frde/index.htm

--R. J. Musto