Decades late, FDR memorial park is opening in NYC

NEW YORK (AP) — A New York City memorial park honoring President Franklin Roosevelt has been completed 40 years after the original design.

The Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park is located on the southern tip of 2-mile-long Roosevelt Island in the East River between the boroughs of Manhattan and Queens. It’s being dedicated Wednesday in a ceremony to be attended by dignitaries including former President Bill Clinton.

The triangular park is named after Roosevelt’s State of the Union address famously known as the Four Freedoms Speech. He delivered it on Jan. 6, 1941.

The park has a colossal bust of the 32nd president and an open-air granite plaza with excerpts of the speech etched into the stone.

The park will open to the public once arrangements for its operation and maintenance are final.