During ceremonies held at Southpoint - the southern tip of the Island - a model of the FDR Memorial planned for the site was presented to the Roosevelt family.  According to the local newspaper, the Roosevelt Island Main Street, "Members of the Roosevelt family were happy that a lasting memorial to the late President - the first major FDR Memorial in the country - would stand here, in the midst of the newest and most innovative community in the city he loved so much."

In fact, it turned out to be easier to build an FDR memorial in Washington than to build one here - or indeed to do much of anything with Southpoint.

A knifeblade of approximately 10 acres forming the southern tip of Roosevelt Island, Southpoint has been off-limits to visitors since 1982.  But you can see the site from the Tram, the 59th St. Bridge, or nearby Manhattan or Queens.  To the south lies a flat grassy plain edged with the familiar Island rip rap.  The northern portion is wilder, with trees clustered around the Gothic ruins of the Smallpox Hospital (the Renwick Ruin), piles of rubble left from the demolition of the old City Hospital, and the ruin of the neo-Renaissance Strecker Laboratory.

You can get a closer look at all of this - the romance of the ruins and the site's spectacular views of Manhattan and Queens- on July 4 when Southpoint will again serve as a vantage point for the Macy's fireworks.

To some observers, prospects for substantive development of Southpoint would appear to be slim: It is a relatively small property, there are landmarks to contend with, access from Manhattan is complicated by its distance from the Tram and subway, and there are no nearby support services.

Calatrava's pavillion design

The Roosevelt Island Future Focus Investment Workshop, organized by RIOC in 1995 to brainstorm Island development, tried to address these problems.  According to its wrap-up report, opinions on the site diverged sharply, "some participants advocating maintaining it as open space, some urging its development as a world-class facility that would attract a continuous flow of off-islanders...  For the short term, participants recommended renting the land for temporary cultural events.  For the long term, participants agreed that "the proposed Memorial Park and restaurant-pavilion" (a RIOC-commissioned design by famed Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava) "by themselves would not constitute strong enough draws.  However, one or both could be part of a larger development, particularly if the restaurant were enlarged and a ferry link established to Manhattan."

This wrap-up report is "Attachment 4" to the current RFP, which includes development of Southpoint "for commercial, residential, or mixed use."  While passing references are made to the FDR Memorial and the restaurant-pavilion, the RFP is silent on the existing landmarks and does not overtly restrict development of any portion of the site.  "Proposals will be considered for development of all or part of the 10 acre site... Southpoint."

Any sort of commercial or residential development of the site is outside the scope of the General Development Plan (GDP), the legally binding blueprint for Island development.  The GDP merely includes Southpoint Park in its list of open spaces which are "to be developed as parks," and does not specify how the parks are to be financed.

For anything other than a park to be built, the GDP must be amended.  This fact is acknowledged in the RFP, which states, "Development of Sites and each individual site, must be in accordance with the City Lease and GDP," and "The GDP may require amendment for the development resulting from this request."  Since the New York City Board of Estimate was dissolved, it's unclear whether the Mayor or City Council would have final approval of any change.

The Seawall Proposal for Southpoint, illustrated here, was prepared for RIOC a few years ago by Langan Engineering and Sasaki Associates.  It offers a recent snapshot of what a Southpoint Park might look like.

The proposal included a river promenade, roads, a ferry terminal, and a comfort station/restaurant (the pavilion), as part of a long-range capital plan for development.  Implementation of each piece of the plan would proceed as funding became available.

In the course of the seawall work, the south tip was roughly shaped to accommodate the original design of the Roosevelt Memorial.  During the few years necessary for this earthwork to stabilize, RIOC hoped that money could be raised for the Memorial, that the ferry pier could be built, and that the site could be used as a venue for temporary events.

RIOC also investigated commercial development for the site's northern portion. The hope was that this development might help in financing the park to the south, including the FDR Memorial.  A research institute, UNICEF, and various developers were contacted.  None showed any serious interest.  That proposal is not part of the current RFP.  Developers can now propose almost anything, as long as the landmarks are retained.

Strecker Laboratory

The GDP identifies three landmarks at Southpoint: Strecker Laboratory, the Smallpox Hospital, and City Hospital. These are to be "rehabilitated," but only "if rehabilitation can be financed other than with financing from the Corporation," meaning UDC (today, RIOC).

Smallpox ruin

Strecker Lab and the Smallpox Hospital were designated landmarks by city, state, and federal panels. City Hospital was not - the only 19th-century structure on the Island that didn't receive this protection. As years passed and no financing was found to restore, re-use, or stabilize them, the buildings fell into serious and life-threatening disrepair. Without the legal protection afforded by landmark status, the directives of the GDP were not enough to prevent demolition of City Hospital a few years ago.

Smallpox Hospital (Renwick ruin) more pictures

No funding has ever been found for the Smallpox Hospital, either.  But because it's a landmark, any developer would have to stabilize it or provide a 30-foot buffer around it.

Strecker Laboratory has a more certain future. The New York Transit Authority has a contract with RIOC to build an airshaft transfer station inside and restore the facades outside.

Unlike the landmarks, which are protected by law, the legal status of the FDR Memorial is uncertain.  Even more unsettled is the question of who should or will pay for it.

The UDC commissioned Louis Kahn, the preeminent American architect of the era, to design the Roosevelt memorial in 1972.  "One of the noblest unbuilt projects in New York - a great tree-lined promenade leading to a sculpture court and a 72-foot 'room' open to the sky" is how the New York Times described it in an editorial of August 23, 1992.  "Why did I want a room and a garden?" Kahn asked.  "I just chose it to be the point of departure.  The garden is somehow...a personal kind of control of nature, a gathering of nature.  And the room was the beginning of architecture."

The Kahn Design

Kahn's death in 1974 is no obstacle to construction of the park.  Sue Kahn, his daughter, says that "what is significant for me" about the memorial "is that this is the only unfinished project of my father in which all the details were completely worked out.  All the working drawings are complete down to the last stone.  It is really possible to build and it's unique in this respect."  If constructed, it would be the only Kahn design in New York City.

Originally, the project was to be funded jointly by the City and the State, but work was halted by the City fiscal crisis of 1975.  Construction estimates have inevitably risen from 1973's $4 million to a more recent figure of $15 million.

The GDP doesn't mention the Memorial.  But there are repeated references to it in other documents over nearly a quarter of a century of Island development.  For example, the 1974 Project Agreement between federal agencies and the State Urban Development Corporation lists "Landmark Park, including the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial at the Southernmost tip of the island" as one of five planned parks.  "Work on a park and memorial to President Franklin D. Roosevelt will be substantially completed" during the initial Three-Year Program.  All of this is to be financed by "the Developer," defined as "The New York State Urban Development Corporation (UDC)" or its successor (RIOC).

Promotional literature on Roosevelt Island from the 1970s and the UDC Annual Report of 1974 prominently feature a Southpoint Park with the Roosevelt Memorial at its tip.

And a study by the United Nations Development Corporation rejected the idea of Southpoint as a residential development, and called instead for building the FDR Memorial and restoring the landmarked structures.

In 1986, Governor Cuomo established a commission, headed by former Mayor Robert Wagner, to look once again into creation of the Memorial.  According to William vanden Heuvel, current President of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute in Hyde Park, the commission concluded it was "the right place, and the right time" to proceed with the Kahn design.  Furthermore, he remembers that the state promised $5 million to begin the project, an expenditure blocked by the state fiscal crisis of the late '80s.

This stand on the Memorial is in sharp contrast to the position taken by previous RIOC administrations.  The RIOC Financial Plan for 1994/95, for example, lists development of Southpoint - "the FDR Memorial Park designed by renowned architect Louis I. Kahn for the southernmost 3 acres" and "the 5-acre park to the north" - as one of the "two large remaining projects to be built as part of the Master Plan."  (Southtown, of course, is the other.)

Vanden Heuvel acknowledges the difficulties in funding the project but argues, "like every major memorial it needs a public sector core of financing as well as private monies."  And he is unequivocal on the Roosevelt Institute's position on any development of the property.  "We will fight like hell to keep this site.  The City of New York may have a legal obligation, and it certainly has a moral obligation from 1973."

None of the ten developers who received RIOC's RFP has yet responded, leaving a string of unanswered questions:  Will the park finally be built, with or without the FDR Memorial?  Will the developers pleasantly surprise us with some new departure?  Or will the tide of current interest in Southpoint ebb, as it has before, leaving Roosevelt Island with a rubble-strewn vacant lot with the best unseen views in town?

Back to TimeLine
NYC10044 top