An Ode to Liberty Island
It’s 2007. My girlfriend and I have flown across the Atlantic for a week-long holiday in New York, our first trip to the USA together.
We’re not earning a huge amount, but the exchange rate is at its most favourable peak, with one British pound buying us just over two US dollars. Even so, we’re on a budget.
To fit everything in, we plan ahead and buy ourselves a New York Pass. Costing over $100 each, these give you the opportunity to visit as many museums and attractions as you can cram into the 7-day validity period.
We collect them at 9:00 AM on Day One from Planet Hollywood in Times Square, wide-awake from the jet lag and eager to start our sightseeing.
One of the top names on our prioritised list of things to see was the famous Statue of Liberty. For this, we rode the subway to Bowling Green (using our week-long ‘Unlimited Ride’ Metrocard) and headed to the shore of Battery Park, where the boat to Liberty Island was already waiting.
We were thankful to be able to skip the queue for tickets, instead flashing our New York Pass and clambering aboard the boat, after a brief detour through the mandatory X–ray security screening.
The boat was full, but the trip across the harbour was short. We were soon able to disembark on the small island, with the boat–load of tourists heading immediately across to base of the statue. We preferred to hang back a little, get some breathing space, and take our time.
Passing a small Information Centre, I spotted a sign advertising a ‘ranger tour’ of the island, starting in just ten minutes. The meeting point was at a flag pole, just ahead of us. We ambled over there and waited beneath the Star–spangled banner, enjoying the view of the statue’s rear.
In a short while, the ranger came to meet us. Wearing an olive-green uniform, with a wide brimmed hat, she instantly reminded me of the characters from Yogi Bear. Warm and friendly, she introduced herself, and started us off on the tour. We were joined initially by an elderly Japanese couple, but they soon wandered off, leaving just the two of us to hear the ranger’s story of the island's history.
And what a story it was. A story not only of engineering and construction, but also of politics, immigration and money.
She told us of how the island used to be surrounded by oyster beds, providing food for local inhabitants.
She told us of how the island had been used for quarantining Smallpox victims, and was once named Bedloe’s Island.
She told us of the petty but long-running dispute between New York and New Jersey over whose state the island belonged to. This squabble was partly resolved by turning it over to the Federal government, who built a military fort on it, in the odd shape of an 11-point star, still visible today.
Then she told us the story of the statue itself.
Designed by a Frenchman, the statue was to be a great gift from the old nation of France to the new nation of the United States, as a recognition of their friendship, and in part a reminder of France’s role in helping America achieve independence from Britain.
Inspired by the ancient Colossus of Rhodes, the statue depicts Lady Liberty. At her feet lies a broken chain, on her head sits a crown, and in her hands she holds the torch of progress and a keystone tablet inscribed with the date of American Independence.
It was agreed that France would pay for the statue, and America for the pedestal. The French government organised a state lottery to raise funds, and donations were sought from the French public. The statue’s head was even displayed in the Paris World Fair in 1878 to help garner support.
Once enough money was gathered, the statue was constructed in its entirety in France. Rather than being solid, like smaller stone statues, the Statue of Liberty was made from a copper sheeting. To hold up this copper skin, the French turned to Gustav Eiffel, at the time known for his bridges. Eiffel designed a pylon–shaped steel structure that would stand up inside the hollow statue. He later used a very similar design for a Paris monument that would come to be known as the Eiffel Tower.
When construction was finished in France, the statue was ready to be disassembled and shipped over to New York.
But the Americans, the ranger explained, weren’t quite so ready with the funds to build the pedestal. Being naturally suspicious of state funding of anything, least of all a non–functioning work of art, money had been sought from the public instead. But it wasn’t until Joseph Pulitzer started a campaign in his New York newspaper that the money started to roll in, often from the poor rather than the wealthy. This fundraising was helped by his promise to print the names of every donor in the pages of the newspaper, no matter how small the amount.
In another effort to raise money, local poet Emma Lazarus was asked to contribute. As she had been working to aid Jewish refugees to New York fleeing persecution in Europe, she wrote a poem for the statue to express this support.
Here, the ranger adopted the pose of Lady Liberty, standing defiant with one arm holding an imaginary torch aloft, and recited from memory the words of the poem:
Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
We were moved. This put the statue in a new light. It wasn’t a symbol of American power, but of compassion.
The ranger continued the story. With funds for the pedestal raised, the statue was shipped across Atlantic, each piece numbered like a jigsaw puzzle, and slowly rose in the New York harbour.
The country’s memory of the poem faded, but the statue continued to hold great significance for refugees, the ranger explained. It was for many the first thing they saw on after their long sea journey to New York. The range pointed across to the nearby Ellis Island, and explained how millions of refugees were processed there, so close to the statue. Some New Yorkers complained, she admitted, that the statue didn’t face Manhattan — but it was always designed to look out to the ocean, greeting arrivals to the harbour.
The statue was originally designed with a lighthouse role, but from the beginning the light was barely visible from the harbour. The Lighthouse Board cut ugly windows in the the side of the torch in an effort to let more light out. All this did though was to let water in, causing the torch to start to corrode and rust.
Eventually the management of the statue and the island passed to the War Department, and then to the National Park Service. This explained, our guide said, why it was her, a park ranger, giving the tour, rather than an official from New York State or the military.
Over the past few decades, the Park Service had overseen substantial restoration of the statue, including a complete replacement of the torch, which was once again solid as per the original design, now coated in gold.
The observation deck in the crown had been closed since 9/11, we were told, for safety reasons – given its only access via a single spiral staircase. But if we went into the pedestal, we could look around a small museum which contained both the original hole–strewn torch, and a plaque with the full text of Emma Lazarus’s sonnet. Plus we could walk up a small staircase to the first observation deck inside the statue, and look up to see the Eiffel Tower–like internal structure.
At this point, the ranger stopped to check that we had picked up tickets enabling us to go into the pedestal. We were thrown. We had New York Passes, we explained, enabling us to skip the queues. Ah, but those were only valid for the ferry, she explained. To enter the museum in the pedestal we should have acquired tickets at the Information Point in Battery Park. It was too late for that, and we resigned ourselves to just being able to look around the island.
Our disappointment must have been obvious though, for the ranger reached into her jacket and pulled out two tickets with a smile and a wink. We could see inside the statue after all.
Inside the museum we were filled with a new sense of awe for the statue, and read every information panel. We gazed at the butchered old torch, and took in the poem. Best of all was climbing the staircase to be able to look through a small window in the ceiling to stare up at the statue’s innards.
The rest of our trip to New York was equally filled with amazing sights, and at each attraction we sought out the guided tours. But none left as much of an impression as our tour of Liberty Island, and we’ll be forever grateful to the ranger who gave us such a vivid picture of America's most famous landmark.
