New York to get ‘largest LGBTQ Pride Flag’ at Roosevelt Island

A New York state park will unveil the city’s “largest LGBTQ Pride Flag” on Saturday, it said. 

The steps of the Four Freedoms State Park on Roosevelt Island will transform into a 12-foot-by-100-foot pride flag, from Friday, June 14, to Sunday, June 30, the park announced.

{mosads}The park said the event is in honor of progress that’s been made over the past 50 years on human rights, and is intended to shine light on the fight for universal human rights.

It is also intended to call attention to President Franklin Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” speech from January 1941. In that address, Roosevelt described as fundamental four freedoms that all people should share: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear.

“It just seemed natural for the park to honor the LGBTQ community in this visible way,” Julia Ireland, the great-granddaughter of President Franklin Roosevelt and a member of the park’s board of directors, told NBC News. 

The Saturday event from noon to 6 p.m. will also feature a World Pride celebration with food trucks and a drag queen story hour. 

New York City is celebrating a “Year of Pride” to honor the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots of June 1969, a key moment in the history of the LGBTQ rights movement.