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MEMORIES:
babyjess remembers...I climbed to the top with my family. I think they've stopped allowing people to do that now, but at ... More »
Posted on 11/12/08
PHOTOS:
JULY IV MDCCLXXVI
She’s French.
She was sculpted by Frenchman Frederic Auguste Bartholdi. Her internal structure was engineered by Frenchman Alexandre Gustave Eiffel (for whom his greatest creation, the Eiffel Tower, is named). The copper and the “Repousse” technique used to fashion it were chosen by Eugene Viollet-de-Duc. Hell, her given name is “Liberte Eclairant le Monde” (Liberty Enlightening the World).
But she couldn’t possibly be more American.
The picture of elegance, the pride of beauty, few things symbolize anything as completely as the one hundred and fifty-one feet statue symbolizes her namesake. A gift from the Franco-American Union in Paris to commemorate the centennial of the United States of America, she has stood since 1886 as a steady welcome to anyone visiting for the first time, anyone returning for the umpteenth time, and perhaps above all, anyone staying for all time. Early archival footage reveals the impact her presence had on immigrants as they escaped their sundry oppressions under the shelter of her outstretched arm.
The iconography of Lady Liberty has been represented throughout popular culture with a certain timelessness. One of the founding teams in the Women’s National Basketball Association was the New York Liberty, inspired by and named not only after the statue’s iconic symbolism, but gender as well. Alfred Hitchcock’s 1942 thriller Saboteur, Danny Cannon’s 1995 action film Judge Dredd, and Bryan Singer’s 2000 adaptation of X-Men all feature a climactic battle on top of the statue. In Ghostbusters II, the heroes used specialized slime to bring the statue to life in order to generate enough goodwill throughout the city to do away with the villain. Perhaps the most infamous cinematic representation of Lady Liberty comes at the end of Planet of the Apes (1968) when the protagonist George Taylor (Charlton Heston) discovers the remains of the statue and realizes that mankind destroyed itself through warfare. This depiction was actually quite popular in a number of science fiction works throughout the latter half of the twentieth century and has become one of the dominant characteristics of the genre in representing the subjugation or destruction of America.
For a child visiting the statue, an obstacle course lies between the shores of New York City and the view from the top of the crown. A Ferry service transports crowds to Liberty Island, where a museum and a ten-story climb up the pedestal leads visitors to… more stairs. After a long trek up the tiny winding staircase, a peek out on the majesty of the New York skyline awaited the little eyes (and tired feet) of successful climbers. Unfortunately, after September 11, 2001, the interior of the statue was closed to the public; children visiting New York today will have to be satisfied with their close-up glimpse of the lady in all her glory.
Whether up close or from a distance, whether in pictures or right in front of your face, in many ways the statue more than symbolizes liberty. She is Liberty. And for a woman over a hundred and thirty years old, she’s never looked better.
