Two weeks ago, our reporter Pia Catton gave a number of reasons for disliking the new memorial to Franklin D. Roosevelt, starting with its misrepresentation of the man's character and his politics. Here's another reason: Besides memorializing ineptly, it panders ineptly.
In an effort to placate advocates for the disabled, upset that FDR would not be depicted in his wheelchair, the memorial incorporated Braille in one of its sculptures, spelling out for the blind to feel the alphabet soup of New Deal agencies -- WPA, CCC, and so on.
The problem? As a Washington Post headline last week put it: "FDR Memorial's Braille Lettering Is Too Large to Be Legible." One blind visitor explained to the Post: "The dots are about five times normal size." Another, after fruitlessly running his fingers over the bas-relief, said, "It must be a fake."
As always with such blunders, the most entertaining part of the story was the sculptor's effort to avoid saying he had goofed: "My concept of that piece," said Robert Graham, "was to have Braille as a kind of invitation to touch, more than anything. . . . Nothing is life-size in the piece, so you very much have to adjust yourself to the scale." In other words, you Braille- readers should grow yourselves some bigger fingers.