Profile: The Statue of LibertyShe's been closed to the public since 9/11, but New York's tallest lady is back in business. Just don't mention the French, writes Róisín Ingle
It was the perfect opportunity to bury le hatchet, but little mention was made of the French when the Statue of Liberty opened to the public this week for the first time since the September 11th terrorist attacks three years ago.
In the hoopla that surrounded the reopening ceremony, any reference to the fact that the potent symbol of freedom was a gift of international friendship from France, a genuine gesture of respect from one nation to another, was either absent or went unreported. It seems American animosity towards France is still too raw for officials to risk electoral ire by attempting to put the French back into their Freedom Fries.
But whatever about the cultural consequences of war in Iraq, paying tribute to Lady Liberty without mentioning the French is like leaving the Americans out of Mom’s apple pie. Entirely funded by the French, the statue was designed by sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi who, in the late 19th century, dreamt up the copper-plated wonder after a friend invited him to build a monument to honour the success of the US in its long struggle for independence.
Originally named “Liberty Enlightening the World”, the statue was a tribute to the fundamental ideals of the fledgling American republic. “To the statue’s French creators, America, with its democratic ideals and Republican government, was already enlightened,” Barry Moreno, a librarian at the Statue of Liberty National Monument said, explaining why the French historian and professor Edouard Laboulaye asked Bartholdi to create the monument.
“Europe, still full of Czars and emperors, was not.” This is why the statue’s steady gaze is directed east towards “the old world”, although these days the French might have something different to say about which of the two nations is more enlightened.
Officials are hoping that tourists will flock back to Liberty Island, the 12-acre piece of land off the coast of Manhattan, where the statue is located.
The second of the two hijacked planes that crashed into the World Trade Centre on September 11th was flown low over the statue, and in the security clampdown which followed across America the entire island was closed to the public.
Even though access to the island itself was restored 100 days later, tourism in the three years that followed is reported to have fallen by 45 per cent. And despite New York Governor Pataki’s upbeat words about the symbolic nature of the statue’s torch at the reopening ceremony – “it never went out and it never will” he said – concern has been expressed at the fact that the monument is only being partially opened to the public. Access to the statue’s spiky crown and upraised torch – reached in the past by visitors after queuing for hours and climbing a cramped, winding staircase inside the green giant – is still being denied, and these areas will remain closed, according to officials, for the foreseeable future.
Visitors will have to be content with a stroll around an observation deck at the feet of the statue and a glimpse through a new glass ceiling at the interior’s steel skeleton devised by Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel, of Paris tower fame. Some are doubtful that this diminished experience will be enough to pack the ferries out once again.
New York Congressman Anthony Weiner said the cause of the public fundraising effort that paid for the reopening was disingenuous.
“I don’t think people who collected coffee cans and mailed in one-dollar donations to newspaper fund drives thought we were opening her toes,” he said this week. “They thought we were opening her crown.”
Meanwhile, a popular Statue of Liberty Internet site is inviting people to sign a petition calling on the US government to reopen the statue fully, saying that a ban on tourists from the statue’s crown is a victory for terrorists.
Inevitably, security around the 305-foot-high monument has also been stepped up.
Along with copious Liberty souvenirs, the island is now home to sniffer dogs, airport-style screening points and a new bomb detection device which blasts air through visitors’ clothes, screening for particles of explosive residue.
It will be left to tourists to decide whether the panoramic views of the New York skyline available from the base of the statue are worth the added security hassle.
A beacon of hope and the first glimpse of America for all the “huddled masses” who sailed into nearby Ellis Island, lured by the promise of a better life, the idea for the Statue of Liberty was born around a dinner table in France in the summer of 1865.
It was shortly after President Lincoln had been assassinated, an event that sent a wave of grief through France, when Laboulaye first voiced his proposal that a monument should be built.
Bartholdi, a guest at the dinner party, is thought to have conceived the idea for the statue during a trip to America to research the project.
He is said to have known how Lady Liberty would look and where she would be located before he had even left the ship.
According to some sources, Bartholdi modelled the face of the statue on his mother, but when she got tired with the process he used his mistress, Jeanne-Emilie Baheux de Puysieux, who he eventually married.
In fact, despite the gender of Lady Liberty, the only females allowed on the island during the opening ceremony in 1886 were de Puysieux and the eightyear-old daughter of Suez Canal designer Ferdinand de Lessep. More than amillion people watched from the shore as the French tricolour veil was pulled away and the statue revealed.
Bartholdi chose to dress Liberty as a Roman deity, and the tablet she holds in her right hand – her index finger measures 2.4 metres – is inscribed with July 4th, 1776, the date of American Independence, in Roman numerals.
Around her feet are broken shackles of slavery. The chains lie in front of her right foot, the heel of which is raised as if she is about to leave Liberty Island and take a walk around the harbour.
Dubbed "New York's lighthouse" by a cynical American press at the time, the acceptance speech of the official who formally received the monument on behalf of the American government is testament to the kind of Franco-
American relations that seem utterly alien today. "God grant that it may stand until the end of time as an emblem of imperishable sympathy and affection between the Republics of France and the United States."
What a difference a war makes. Three years ago, one month before the September 11th attacks, French stunt man Thierry Deveaux launched himself over the statue with the help of a gas-fuelled propeller strapped to his back. Planning to land on the torch, he got his parachute cords tangled on Liberty’s light and hung helplessly there for around 40 minutes before being rescued. The worst thing that happened to Monsieur Deveaux was that Mayor Rudy Giuliani called him an idiot.
The statue may be back in business, but a far worse fate would surely befall
any French person brave enough to try the same stunt now.
The Liberty File
Who is she?
The Statue of Liberty, one of the world's most enduring
landmarks
Why is she in the news?
She has been partially opened to the public for the first time
since the September 11th attacks in 2001
Most appealing characteristic?
Sends shivers down the spine when viewed for the first time
from the ferry
Least appealing characteristic?
Her large, ungainly feet
Do say
It's the symbol of all that is good about America
Don't say
Those French sure know how to make a statue