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A Complete Restoration
The project will entirely rehabilitate the site, including the existing granite bench, stele, and paving while also adding some new features.
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Enhanced Landscaping
A grove of Japanese Maple trees and a garden filled with the brightly colored flowers that Eleanor Roosevelt adored will be added.
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Updated Inscription
An excerpt from one of Eleanor Roosevelt’s most famous speeches on human rights will be carved by MacArthur Fellow, Nicholas Benson.
A garden and memorial modernized for today’s human rights advocates.
Design Details
The update to the Eleanor Roosevelt Garden (ERG), designed by Lois Sherr Dubin, landscape architect of the FDR Four Freedoms State Park, rehabilitates the existing semi-circular granite bench, stele, and paving while also adding some new features. The current pathways will be realigned and repaved. The area in front of the existing vertical stele will have new plantings and a small granite paved area with a bench. Information markers will reference the FDR Four Freedoms Park situated across the East River (visible from the ERG site) and describe Eleanor Roosevelt, her contributions to the United Nations, and her essential role in crafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Plan of design details
Eleanor Roosevelt’s well-known quote about universal human rights will be carved into the south side of the stele facing the UN by Nicholas Benson, a MacArthur Fellow who engraved the text at the FDR Four Freedoms Park.
A dense planting of 12- to 20-foot-high arborvitae trees in two layers will screen off mechanical equipment from the Monument. A grove of Japanese Maple trees will be added to draw attention to the Memorial as well as acknowledge Mrs. Roosevelt’s 1953 reconciliation trip to Japan. A garden filled with the brightly colored flowers that ER adored will also feature four flowers named in her honor: the Eleanor Roosevelt rose, peony, iris, and daylily. Mrs. Roosevelt believed that flowers were “a gift of love and friendship.”
Rekindle the Flame
Projected costs for the rehabilitated garden and memorial are estimated to be $2.5 million. 100% of your donation will go to these ends.
Make real her dream.
--Arthur Goldberg, US Ambassador to the UN, 1966
Join us to restore the site and reinvigorate Eleanor Roosevelt’s hopes and ideals for the twenty-first century world. In her lifetime, she called the Universal Declaration of Human Rights “a first step.” Help us take the next ones. <Add donate button here>
Project History & Existing Conditions
In order to mark the historic contributions of Eleanor Roosevelt to the founding and mission of the United Nations, President John F. Kennedy signed into law in 1963 a bill establishing the Eleanor Roosevelt Memorial Foundation. In 1966, that organization dedicated an area within the formal gardens of the United Nations to her memory and installed a semi-circular granite bench engraved with “1884 – ANNA ELEANOR ROOSEVELT – 1962” facing a vertical granite slab (or stele) inscribed with Adlai Stevenson’s tribute to his dear friend upon her death in 1962: “She would rather light a candle than curse the darkness, and her glow has warmed the world." For many years after, Mrs. Roosevelt’s close friends would gather on her birthday at this memorial to remember her towering contributions to the United Nations and the world.
Unfortunately, as all the original founding members and friends have passed on, the Eleanor Roosevelt Memorial is, today, a shabby replica of the original gift to the UN. The curved bench is mold-covered with poorly grouted joints holding sections together. Scrub trees shade an area of cracked paving stones, surrounded by little to no planting. The stones have unevenly settled resulting in ponding water that creates a dank atmosphere. While the rest of the UN Garden was recently renovated and beautifully replanted, this one section stands out because of its disrepair.