Best of New York 2013 • Fun

• FDR Four Freedoms Park

  Roosevelt Island; fdrfourfreedomspark.org

  Big sky, sea breezes, a little peace and quiet�all the ingredients of a great getaway, sans the LIRR ticket. The 40-years-in-the-making Four Freedoms Park, architect Louis Kahn’s memorial to FDR at the southern tip of Roosevelt Island, finally opened in October, and it was worth the wait. A four-acre lawn lined with two rows of littleleaf linden trees slopes down to a granite point in the East River, where it faces the United Nations, which Roosevelt himself inspired. Like the best modern art, the memorial makes you see the familiar anew. You feel a sanctified stillness in the middle of the city, and far removed from midtown, just a tram ride away.

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