September 25, 2008

Letter to the NY Times
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/25 regarding Roosevelt
Island and the now approved Memorial to FDR

Congratulations to Mr. William vanden Heuval and his
magnificent efforts and work regarding the memory of one of New York's greatest sons. Obviously, to all
who have a sense of history, Franklin Delano Roosevelt will remain fondly in
the hearts of all freedom-loving Americans. His remarkable leadership in
confronting the Great Depression, and reversing the panic and our slide to
oblivion should never be forgotten or deprecated, by the “fiction writers
inside and outside of Congress.” The reforms instituted in the First
Hundred Days of the New Deal should be a lesson to us today regarding the miscreants
of greed who have brought our financial well-being and stability to a dangerous
precipice. The apostles of de-regulation are now begging for relief as they
hold the whole financial system hostage to their falsehoods and empty words.
Wasn't it in only April and May when our modern day Andrew Mellon and Herbert
Hoover, declared “prosperity is just around the corner.” Hopefully
come this November the American people will rise up in their “righteous
indignation” and throw those rascals to the dustbin of history.

FDR conquered polio, saved our economic institutions,
founded the Warm Springs Foundation that found the cure for that dreaded
disease, and rallied the country in the wake of its “Day of Infamy.”
FDR the “Soldier of Freedom,” aptly named by historian James McGregor
Burns, made us “The Arsenal of Freedom,” authored the Atlantic
Charter, created Lend-Lease, and cemented the alliance of Allied nations that
brought the fascist totalitarians to their knees. He also brought us the GI
Bill, Bretton Woods monetary reform and the United Nations. Churchill said of
him that he, “was the greatest man he known.” No better site could be
then on Roosevelt Island that flanks both the FDR Drive and is in
the shadow of the UN. I look forward to visiting this memorial, and again
“hats off” to Bill vanden Heauval and his great work.

Richard J. Garfunkel

Tarrytown,
NY