More memorials? Forget it, says Park Service : Capital is running out of room to commemorate presidents and soldiers.

One day in 1941, Justice Felix Frankfurter asked President Franklin D. Roosevelt what kind of a memorial he would like. Roosevelt tapped his desk in the Oval Office and said, “Something about this size, on Pennsylvania Avenue, near the Archives.”

Roosevelt got his wish in 1965 when a simple slab of Vermont marble was dedicated outside the Archives. The $12,000 cost was raised by private contributions. But now the nation’s 32nd President is about to get another memorial, one far grander than he had envisioned. It will cost $48 million--much of it coming from public funds--and occupy 17 acres between the Potomac River and the Tidal Basin.

Construction will start this summer. When completed, gardens will contain 11 statues depicting Roosevelt’s life and times.

Said Frances Campbell, executive director of the project: “Historically, great leaders have not been the ones to decide what kind of memorial is appropriate. The people have decided. And I don’t think they thought such a small memorial (by the National Archives) was appropriate for such a great President.”

No matter who decides, the National Park Service, Washington’s biggest landholder, is worried these days that the number of memorials in the District is getting out of hand and that there isn’t much more room to accommodate monuments that are spread over multiple acres.

The Park Service already oversees and maintains 114 memorials commemorating 10 presidents, 42 military men, actions or units and such diverse figures as Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko, labor leader Samuel Gompers and Maine lobstermen.

Another 45 proposed memorials are under consideration, including statues to honor American journalists killed in combat, Latino Vietnam veterans and Draza Mihailovic, a Yugoslav general who saved 500 American airmen in World War II.

“Except for presidential memorials, it’s the public that generates the ideas,” said John Parsons, a land-use coordinator for the Park Service.

Even more memorials might be in the works had Congress not set limits in 1986. Those honored must have been dead for at least 25 years, the design must pass at least three commissions and, except for presidential monuments, involve no expense to taxpayers. Ten percent of construction costs must be set aside for upkeep.

Although there is no memorial to those who fought World War II, the 1.5 million Americans who served in Korea--and the 33,629 men who died there--are about to get their own site of recognition, a $15-million memorial that will include a granite wall etched with 100 representative faces. Ground-breaking ceremonies are scheduled next week.

The Korean War had a higher casualty rate than the Vietnam War, but veterans of the conflict point out that they received little recognition. “When I got home, my family met me at the airport. That was pretty much it,” said Raymond Davis, a retired Marine Corps general who won the Medal of Honor at Chosin Reservoir in 1950.

“We were of a generation that went to war not to save America but because we decided it was time to take a stand against Communist aggression,” said retired Col. Bill Weber, who lost an arm and a leg in Korea. “These are things that need to be brought to the attention of our nation, and the memorial will help do that.”

Congressional legislation is required to authorize any new National Park Service monument, and the Korean War Veterans Memorial languished for years in Congress. But the popularity of the Vietnam War Memorial, dedicated in 1982 and now visited by 3 million people a year, motivated other veterans to also seek recognition. There was even brief, intense pressure from the White House last year to build a memorial to veterans of the Persian Gulf War, sources at the National Park Service said.

The Vietnam memorial, dedicated to the American men and women of that war, bears the names of those who died, including eight women. But when a statue of three male soldiers was added to the site, Diane Evans, a nurse who had served in Vietnam, felt slighted. More than 30,000 American women were in Vietnam, with the military, the Red Cross and other groups.

Evans worked for eight years to get authorization for a memorial honoring those women. The fruits of her labor--a $1-million statue of three women and a wounded U.S. soldier--will be placed near the Vietnam wall and will be dedicated late next year.

“No one wants to be forgotten,” she said.