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Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial Review

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Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial

Address: West side of Tidal Basin, Washington, DC | Map It
Phone: 202/426-6841
www.nps.gov/fdrm

Category: Memorials/Monuments
Location: The Mall

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Fodor's Review:

Unveiled in 1997, this 7-1/2-acre memorial to the 32nd president includes waterfalls and reflection pools, four outdoor gallery rooms—one for each of Roosevelt's presidential terms—and 10 bronze sculptures. The granite megaliths connecting the galleries are engraved with some of Roosevelt's famous statements, including, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

Congress established the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial Commission in 1955 and invited prospective designers to look to "the character and work of Roosevelt to give us the theme of a memorial." Several decades passed before Lawrence Halprin's design for a "walking environmental experience" was selected. It incorporates work by artists Leonard Baskin, Neil Estern, Robert Graham, Thomas Hardy, and George Segal, and master stone carver John Benson.

The statue of a wheelchair-bound Roosevelt near the entrance of the memorial was added in 2001. Originally, the memorial showed little evidence of Roosevelt's polio, which he contracted at age 39. He used a wheelchair for the last 24 years of his life but kept his disability largely hidden from public view. The statue was added after years of debate about whether to portray Roosevelt realistically, or to honor his desire not to display his disability.

A bronze statue of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt stands in front of the United Nations symbol in the fourth room. She was a vocal spokesperson for human rights and one of the most influential women of her time.

You're encouraged to touch the handprints along the columns in the second room, which represent the working hands of the American people.

Cost: Free
Open: Open 24 hrs; staffed daily 8 AM-midnight
Metro: Smithsonian

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