Photo by hotdogger13, courtesy Flickr

Groundbreaking is expected in August for the first phase of the 4.5-acre Four Freedoms Park on New York's Roosevelt Island. The park will be at the southern tip of the island, at the far end of this photograph.

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The 4.5-acre Four Freedoms Park is meant to honor President Franklin Roosevelt, namesake of the island that sits in the East River between Manhattan and Queens. The Queensboro, or 59th Street Bridge, the inspiration for a Simon and Garfunkel song, passes over the island, which also was the site of a climactic scene in the first Spider-Man movie.

Kahn, known for designing public housing during the Depression, was schooled in the Beaux Art style, but his later efforts were less-ornate International School works. He designed the park in 1974, the year in which he died. It will sit on the southern tip of the cigar-shaped island, which is home to a series of high-rise buildings, and it will be directly across the river from the United Nations. The project was originally delayed by funding problems during the New York financial crisis of the mid-1970s, and it then encountered political resistance in the 1990s. Even now, opinion is mixed, with 29 locals polled unhappy with the design, while 22 liked it and 15 were undecided.

Last week, the Roosevelt Island Operating Corp., which runs the island, voted 7-1 in favor of moving ahead with construction of the project's first phase. The park has the $14.7 million in financing it needs, and more than two dozen necessary approvals from city, state, and federal agencies. The total cost for the park, to be built in three stages, is $45 million. The design features stone-paved promenades that border a sloping lawn, and in the later phases there will be 28 granite blocks inscribed with parts of Roosevelt’s 1941 “Four Freedoms” speech to Congress. The speech concerned freedom of speech, of religion and from want and fear. Groundbreaking is expected in mid-August.

Read more at Architectural Record.