Suffrage in Four Freedoms Park, celebrated in a field of sunflowers, marks the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. Once again, the monumental staircase shouts, “Liberation!”
By David Stone
In 2019, Four Freedoms displayed the largest Pride flag ever on the staircase, and this year, Women’s Suffrage gets the honor.
Note: watch the work in a time lapse video below.
Women’s Suffrage in Four Freedoms Park
“We’re proud to join Four Freedoms State Park in this commemoration of the 19th Amendment,” said Valerie Paley.
Paley is senior vice president, chief historian, and director of the Center for Women’s History at the New York Historical Society.
Voting rights were “not instantaneously extended to all women in 1920,” she added. And “…work for full equality continues to this day.”
Joining NYHS in Four Freedoms is the League of Women Voters.
“Four Freedoms Park has found a beautiful way to connect our history of voting rights to the present,” said Virginia Kase, LWV’s CEO.
“The path to equality still begins at the ballot box.”
FDR Four Freedoms Park’s mission strikes a visual high note again with the 19th Amendment Field of Sunflowers.
This brings Women’s Suffrage to life in Four Freedoms Park.
Field of Sunflowers in Time Lapse
A video shows the installation in time lapse photography…
The Park celebrates the Four Freedoms, as pronounced in President Roosevelt’s famous January 6, 1941 State of the Union speech. FDR advocated four essential human freedoms “everywhere in the world” as the basis of a new world sought after the tragedy and triumph of the Second World War.
What the Promenade Remembers
The light on the East River in the early morning is different from the light anywhere else on the Island. It comes in low and sideways, catching the water in long, uneven flashes. On certain days it makes the promenade feel less like a walkway and more like a corridor someone once meant to finish but never quite did. When I was younger I found the suggestion to stop and look at it faintly ridiculous.
