Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park

Sciame was the Construction Manager responsible for the construction of the FDR Four Freedoms Park. Commissioned in 1973 by Governor Nelson Rockefeller and Mayor John Lindsay, the park was designed by iconic American architect Louis I. Kahn as a memorial to President Franklin D. Roosevelt – the only memorial to be built in his home state of NY. After 38 years of varying challenges, construction finally broke ground in March 2010.

The Park design features 2 elements – the “Room”, a structure at the southern tip of the site, and the “Garden” making up the remaining 3.5 acre site just to the North. The “Room” is constructed of massive 36 ton granite blocks quarried in North Carolina and delivered to the site by barge. Kahn’s “Room” makes a tangible connection between Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms and the United Nations complex across the East River in Manhattan. Visitors enter the Park and proceed through a screen of 5 Copper Beech trees and up the monumental set of stairs to the “Garden” (consisting of a great lawn, double allée of 120 Little Leaf Linden trees, and two promenades) as they make their way down to the Room. As one approaches the “Room”, the site narrows and focuses on a Jo Davidson monumental bust of Roosevelt and the text of the “Four Freedoms” speech given by Roosevelt in 1941 from which the Park gets its name.