New York City is the site of this year’s WorldPride, and the celebration is gearing up to be absolutely massive. To match the oversized celebration, the city is installing an outsize flag display on Roosevelt Island. The massive 12-foot by 100-foot rainbow will be splashed across the normally grey steps at the island’s Four Freedoms Park and will be the biggest pride flag in the city’s history. The Four Freedoms Park is a fitting site for the installation, as it honors Franklin D. Roosevelt and his four essential freedoms: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.
Of course, like all good murals, the rainbow flag has its own hashtag: #AscendWithPride. The staircase will be presented by FDR’s great-granddaughter, Julia Ireland (who is also a member of the Four Freedoms Park Conservatory’s board of directors) this Saturday at the Ascend With Pride event.
“I’m inspired by how forward thinking the four freedoms were in 1941, and I would like to think that if my great-grandparents were alive today, they would include LGBTQ+ rights among those for which they advocated and fought,” Ireland said in an interview with NBC News. “Part of the park’s mission in celebrating the four reedoms is to educate and inspire current and future generations to define those freedoms for themselves. The pride flag will serve as a symbol of support and a reminder of the necessity of the human rights that my family worked towards.”
The Ascend With Pride event will also include a Drag Queen Story Hour and a collaboration with VideoOut, an organization that records coming out stories for posterity.
The rainbow will remain throughout the month of June, so you have plenty of time to get out to this ulta-Instagrammable rainbow flag and celebrate on the rainbow steps.