www.nps.gov/fdrm

The newest of the presidential memorials, this four-room, open-air memorial to President Roosevelt sits on a 7½-acre site and is the most visited of the presidential memorial sites, with more than 3 million tourists a year. It is also the only presidential memorial that includes a tribute to a first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, who was also the first U.S. representative at the United Nations.

The four “rooms” of the memorial represent Roosevelt's four terms in office, from 1933 to 1945, the years spanning the Great Depression through World War II. The first gallery represents his first term with a life-size statue of a poor Appalachian couple, the second room a bread line, the third a person listening to Roosevelt's fireside chats, and the fourth a statue of Eleanor Roosevelt.

There are also numerous fountains and green granite walls inscribed with Roosevelt's words, which are particularly moving when illuminated at night. A Social Programs mural depicts in images, writing, and Braille the fifty-four government programs implemented during Roosevelt's New Deal.

As with all commemorative works, there was some controversy associated with the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in that the images of Roosevelt do not portray him in a wheelchair, which he used from the age of thirty-nine until his death at age sixty-three as a result of polio. However, a statue of Roosevelt in a wheelchair was commissioned by President Clinton, and it is displayed at the entrance to the memorial. A replica of Roosevelt's wheelchair is also on view in the memorial's gift shop.

Although the memorial was in the works for more than fifty years, Roosevelt himself had said that he never wanted one. He told his close friend U.S. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, that should posterity decide to erect a memorial to him, it should be no bigger than his White House desk. Until 1997, when the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial was built, the only Roosevelt commemorative marker was a desktop-size granite stone outside the National Archives building.

You'll find the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial between the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, in West Potomac Park on the west shore of the Tidal Basin. The closest Metro stop is the Smithsonian on the Blue or Orange Line, but expect a fairly long walk from the metro station.

The memorial is open from 8 A.M. until 11:45 P.M., and the bookshop that's located on the premises operates 9 A.M. to 6 P.M. Audiotape guides are available.