COME FROM AWAY Writers Receive 'Good Neighbor Award'

On Wednesday, September 21, Four Freedoms Park Conservancy honored Irene Sankoff & David Hein (COME FROM AWAY playwrights) and Dr. Alfredo Quinones Hinojosa (Johns Hopkins Hospital Neurosurgeon, Director of the Brain Tumor Stem Cell Laboratory and Author of the autobiography "Becoming Dr Q") with "Good Neighbor Awards" at the fourth annual Sunset GArden Party, an event celebrating the strong North American bonds forged between Mexico, Canada, and The United States.

Phyllis Yaffe (Consul General of Canada in New York) presented the "Good Neighbor Award" to Irene Sankoff & David Hein for their musical Come From Away which shares stories that celebrate FDR's Four Freedoms. His Excellency Jose Paulo Carreño King (Mexican Undersecretary to North America) presented Dr. Alfredo Quinones?Hinojosa the "Good Neighbor Award" for exemplifying through his career and personal life FDR's Four Freedoms.

Dignitaries who attended the annual sunset gArden Party ceremony at FDR Four Freedoms Park on Roosevelt Island included Ambassador William vanden Heuvel (Founder of Four Freedoms Park Conservancy), His Excellency Carlos Manuel Sada Solana (Ambassador of Mexico to the United States), Ambassador Diego Gómez Pickering (Consul General of Mexico in New York), Heidi Kutz (Deputy Consul General of Canada in New York), Kathy Hochul (New York Lieutenant Governor), and David Paterson (Former Governor of New York).

Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park is the first memorial dedicated to the former President in his home state of New York. Located on the southern tip of Roosevelt Island in New York City, it is the last work of the late Louis I. Kahn, an iconic architect of the 20th century. The Park celebrates the Four Freedoms, as pronounced in President Roosevelt's famous January 6, 1941 State of the Union speech.

Franklin D. Roosevelt's eighth State of the Union address, now known as the Four Freedoms speech, came at a time of extreme American isolationism and was intended to rally the American people against the Axis threat and to shift favor in support of assisting British and Allied troops. Roosevelt announced his vision for "a world attainable in our own time and generation," and founded upon four essential human freedoms: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.

The Four Freedom Park Conservancy's mission is to operate and maintain Four Freedoms Park, a public space dedicated to celebrating and honoring the life and legacy of President Franklin Roosevelt and the Four Freedoms through educational initiatives and public programming.

For more information, visit www.fdrfourfreedomspark.org.