FDR

Monument of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in FDR Four Freedoms Park on Roosevelt Island. I did this piece as an entry for a contest. It wasn't selected as a finalist, but here it is anyway.

The original bust was sculpted by Jo Davidson after his first election in 1933. In 2012 it was scaled up from 18" to 6' and poured in bronze by Polich Tallix foundry for installation in the park.

Opposite the bust is a plaque quoting FDR's Four Freedoms speech:

In future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression - everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way - everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want . . . Everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear . . .  Anywhere in the world. That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. 

FDR Jan 6 1941

I've been reading Jill Lepore's  history of the United States, These Truths, and just read the section on FDR's era. I was surprised at how many things - universal health care, civil rights, wealth inequality - things current in today's political debates, things deemed by many as recently-thought up pipe dreams, have in fact been on the agenda for decades, for over a century. I hope the tide turns in 2020, and all these things are no longer the vision of a distant millennium.