ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, IN BRONZE
By Martha Sherrill
February 22, 1993
NEW YORK, FEB. 21 – The only statues to women in this city honor Joan of Arc and Mother Goose and Gertrude Stein and Alice in Wonderland. Now, finally – after FDR got a drive, a hotel, a post office and an island named after him – his wife, Eleanor, is getting some action. A dinner and concert were held tonight at Lincoln Center to raise money for a bronze statue of Eleanor Roosevelt – in a fitting, contemplative pose – to be set up in Riverside Park on the West Side.
Hillary Rodham Clinton joined members of the Roosevelt family briefly at dinner, then later showed up 35 minutes late in Alice Tully Hall for the concert and got some advice delivered to her by the likes of Lena Horne and Kitty Carlisle Hart – advice for all First Ladies culled from the writings of Roosevelt. Things like: "Remember to lean back in a parade, so that people can see your husband" and "Don't get too fat to ride three in a seat" and "Always be on time."
But Horne and Hart – gushing wildly about Hillary Rodham Clinton – modified the advice to suit her: "She will talk whenever she wants to," said Hart. "She will be disturbed by the things that disturb all of us," said Horne. "She will not do what she's told," said Hart.
"And she will not," said Horne, "lean back in a parade!"
Joanne Woodward read passages from ER's memoirs, "You Learn by Living." Columnist Liz Smith read some letters written by ER admirers. Rosemary Clooney sang "Home on the Range" and Judy Collins sang "Clouds" and Barbara Cook sang "Carolina in the Morning" and Julie Wilson sang something hilarious from "Little Me."
"As I was sitting here this evening," Mrs. Clinton said afterward, "I thought about all the conversations I've had in my head with Mrs. Roosevelt this year – one of the saving graces that I have hung on to for dear life." She explained that during the campaign she "devoured" books and information about Mrs. Roosevelt, and would ask her things like "How did you put up with this?" and "How did you go on, day to day, with all the attacks and criticisms that would be hurled your way?"
Mrs. Roosevelt never responded, she said. "Then I learned that even before President Roosevelt was inaugurated, newspapers were editorializing against Mrs. Roosevelt. They said that she should keep her opinions to herself. That her husband had been elected president and nobody in America wanted to hear a thing she had to say… .
"So it struck me that what was happening to me wasn't anything very new at all … that we relive history because we fail to learn from it."
It's funny that nobody thought of doing a statue for a First Lady before. Aside from their gowns in the Smithsonian and their childhood homes – brass plaques nailed up here and there – nothing in the way of a permanent monument celebrates the billions of agonizing teas and luncheons, the countless visits to dreary hospitals and kindergarten classrooms, the gruesome whistle-stop waves and state dinner smiles. A statue to Jackie Kennedy might show her in riding britches – an equestrian monument! Nancy Reagan's statue might show her holding a dinner plate and mulling over a few fabric swatches. Barbara Bush would, no doubt, be surrounded by a slew of grandkids.
Based on 31 days as First Lady, mostly spent in private meetings about health care reform, it's possible to envision a statue of Hillary – erected at the end of a long conference table, a bronze figure holding a blue Waterman pen, scribbling onto a yellow legal pad.
Herb Zohn, a retired art dealer, came up with the $1 million idea for the Eleanor Roosevelt Monument Fund. "I was walking my dog one day, in a very shabby part of Riverside Park," says Zohn, "and Eleanor Roosevelt just popped into my head."
Riverside Park, stretching along the Hudson River from 72nd Street to 155th, has fallen on hard times lately; it's rundown, dangerous and a haven for the homeless. Zohn haggled with four different local commissions to get permission to erect the ER statue and renovate two acres around it – at 72nd, the southernmost entrance.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1993/02/22/eleanor-roosevelt-in-bronze/ceb2308a-840e-4d86-bf77-0fdb1b6c161c/?utm_term=.51eab4576091
holy fuck anons..