New York is on its way to getting a memorial honoring an iconic American president born in the Empire State-and the Eastern fringe of Manhattan is one step closer to getting some much-needed parkland.

Elected officials gathered on a stormy afternoon last week at the Manhattan side of the Roosevelt Island Tram to officially endorse a design for "Four Freedoms Park." The memorial to President Franklin D. Roosevelt is slated for the southern tip of the eponymous East River Island.

"The time is now. We are finally building South point Park on Roosevelt Island and we should build the FDR Memorial within it," said Council Member Jessica Lapin, who spearheaded recent park and memorial efforts. "Unless you count the FDR Drive," she added, "there is no memorial in this city or state to Franklin Delano Roosevelt."

A coalition of local, city and state elected leaders have worked to push the park plan forward. Lapin secured the $4.5 million in Council funds toward the project, and the state has allocated $8 million. Assembly Member Micah Keller is currently seeking an additional $500,000 in state funds. Also on hand to show their support were Rep. Carolyn Maloney, Borough President Scott Stringer, State Sen. Liz Krueger, Assembly Member Jonathan Bing and Council Member Dan Garodnick.

Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who attended the Oct. 26 event, remarked on the cadre of officials who gathered to endorse the design. "Anytime I see the East Side of Manhattan united this way" Quinn said, "they get what they want."

Another promising sign of support was the presence of Steven Shane, president of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation, who said it was finally time to move forward with a plan that dates to the Lindsay Administration.

The memorial has long been in the making. Renowned architect Louis I. Kahn was commissioned as the designer in 1972, and Welfare Island, as it was then known, was renamed Roosevelt Island in 1973 in anticipation of the monument. But Kahn's death the following year and the economic crisis of the 1970's scuttled the project for decades.

Tobie Roosevelt, who lives in the east 60's and was married to FDR, Jr., recalled how her husband had worked 35 years ago to construct the memorial. After his death, she remembered thinking, "Really, this has to be completed."

A local architect, Paul Broches, partner in the West Side firm Mitchell Giurgola Architects, LLP, took over the project after Kahn's death. So far roughly $5.5 million has been raised for the memorial, which is expected to cost $40 million. Construction is poised to start on the memorial as soon as the remainder of the funds come in, but ground will be broken on Phase 1 of the Southpoint Park in mid-2008, according to Lappin.

Future visitors, who will be able to se the memorial free of charge from dawn till dusk, will pass through a series of five element: the entry, right off the Renwick Ruin; a garden and promenade-an ideal spot for watching fireworks; the forecourt, bordered by trees; a sculpture court, which will have a bust of FDR; and "the Room." The 72-foot square will be open to the sky and enclosed on three sides by granite columns. Carved into the columns at the north entrance to the Room will be the test of the speech that outlined the Four Freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom to worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear.

The memorial will occupy the southernmost 2.8 acres of 13-acre Southpoint Park, a green space.