The non-profit Tolerance Park Foundation seeks to establish a National Heritage Triangle composed of three island symbols in New York Harbor. The island triad envelops America's three primary values as the nation's elemental ideals. Comprised by Governors Island, Liberty Island and Ellis Island, this new pictogram will represent America's fundamental conceptions of Tolerance, Liberty and Welcome.

 

The historic message of toleration (= religious tolerance) as the basis for ethnic diversity and as a fundamental precept in the concept of American freedom was planted first in the Western Hemisphere as a legal-cultural condition by the first settlers to Governors Island in 1624.

 

Therefore, the Foundation's core mission is to protect and preserve Governors Island’s vital message of tolerance as America's ultimate virtue for the benefit of future generations by restoring the island to its historical integrity as being the birthplace of New York State, the North American origin of the legal-political precept of toleration, the State's most important historic landmark and the nation's oldest natural symbol since 1624. The exceptional universal value of the island’s cultural and national heritage may also qualify it as a potential World Heritage Site.

 

The precept of tolerance is New York State’s identity and legacy to the nation. This cultural patrimony—uniquely rooted in the State’s 1624 birth on Governors Island—was vital in the development of American and Western liberty as we know it today. As a moral dynamic, tolerance is the lifeblood of American liberty. Re-linking it with Governors Island as National Symbol in this time of heightened global uncertainty will extol America’s ultimate virtue as an ethical force and will sustain it for future generations as the defender and definer of liberty in an ever-changing society.

 

Governors Island's transformation into America's virtous symbol of tolerance is to be accomplished through the creation of a 50-acre living museum park (30% of the island)—to be known as the Tolerance Park—with, at its center, a 151 ft (46 m) high Tolerance Monument as the universal embodiment of the dynamic force of tolerance.

 

Similarly, Bedloe Island—where one could reside free from prosecution in 17th-century New Netherland (the New York Tri-State region)—was transformed into the American symbol of Freedom by the French gift of the Statue of Liberty while Ellis Island was transformed into the symbol of Welcome through the creation of the American Immigration Museum.

 

Freedom has no meaning in an intolerant (disrespecting, discriminatory) society as demonstrated by the horrific 9/11/2001 assault which was perpetrated in the name of religion. This shameless act of global intolerance was an attempt to set up the Judeo-Christian culture against the Islamic culture on a worldwide scale. Not acting upon recognized intolerance affirms that indifference, complacency, laxity and apathy are the friends of iniquitous bigotry (as, for instance, in Europe in the 1930's and in America from 1941-46).

 

As a two-way street, tolerance makes specific demands. It entails reciprocity and reciprocal respect rather than unilateral accommodation and in defining American freedom, it is a prerequisite for sustainable liberty. Indeed, the limits of tolerance set the standards of liberty and societal freedom itself.

 

Governors Island, when so acknowledged by Governor David A. Paterson and the State Legislature, will instill confidence in the dependable and binding power of tolerance and conciliation as indispensable to the concept of American freedom. Hence, the Legislative Resolutions of May 2002 alone will not suffice in realizing this National Symbol and future World Heritage Site through the living museum park-to-tolerance. Only unanimous acceptance of a two-house bill in Albany will accomplish that.

 

The three islands—Governors Island, Liberty Island and Ellis Island—happen to be ideal complements to one another, each one exemplifying its own unique facet of history.

 

They are geographically perfectly aligned in a triangle and thus compose and portray a new and omnipresent American icon: The National Heritage Triangle. Please address any communications to President@TolerancePark.org.

 

 

Mailing address: The Tolerance Park Foundation, 139 East 79th Street, 15th floor, New York, NY 10075, U.S.A..