The Statue of Liberty
We'll take a quick look at the history, how the statue was built and where you can go on the inside. The statues official name is liberty enlightening the world, but today it's known as the statue of liberty It was a gift to the United States from the people of France in the year 1886
History of it
Governors Island, another popular tourist destination. And Ellis Island, where many immigrants entered the United States from 1892 to 1954 as boats sailed into the harbour. The statue of Liberty would be one of the first views that immigrants would see coming to the United States. The statue of Liberty has come to be known as a symbol of freedom. In her right hand, she holds a torch and in her left hand, she holds a tablet that has the date of the Declaration of Independence in roman numerals. One thing you can't see from the ground is a broken shackle and chain. This is meant to symbolize the end of slavery. The statue is 46 m tall. If you count from the ground up, it's 93 m tall which's about as tall as a 20 story building here is the size of a person in comparison to the statues.
When it was completed in 1886, it was the tallest statue in the world. But that title is now held by the statue of unity in India. It is made up of copper. That's right. It was the colour of a penny. It only took about 20 years for the air and rain to slowly oxidized the metal and turn the colour green. Copper Metal has a thickness of only 2.4 mm. That's less than the thickness of two American pennies. Mhm. The statue was built in pieces and a statue. This big takes a lot of planning. The statue was designed by the French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi. First, he made the initial sculpture out of clay. This was only 1.2 m high. The average adult is a little taller than this Next, a larger version would be twice the size and would be made out of plaster.
The next version would be much bigger. This is 1/4 the size of the full statue at each stage of enlargement. Bartoletti would be able to further perfect the details of the statue for the full-size version. It had to be built in pieces that would fit inside the workshop. At one point to raise money, the finished version of the statue's head was displayed in France and the right arm and torch were displayed in the United States. Visitors could pay money to climb to the top of each of these. So how do we get from the plaster model of the statute to the finished copper version? Well, the final version was made out of sheets of copper. They used a method called refuse a here's how this works. They would take pieces of the full-size plaster model of the statue and build a wooden mould right up next to it.
Material
This would then be used to shape the pieces of copper. They would hammer them in place until they would fit the shape of the wooden mould. After that, the copper was supported on the inside with iron straps. Now we have a completed piece of the statue of Liberty by themselves. These pieces would never be able to hold their own weight It needs a supporting structure and this was designed by Gustave Eiffel. His name might sound familiar to you. Just a few years later, he would go on to help build the Eiffel Tower in Paris France. The statue of Liberty has an iron pylon at the very centre. You can think of this as the spine of the statue of Liberty Then smaller support beams were built around this to support the copper pieces of the statue. The structure would allow the statue to sway in the wind by up to 12 cm at the very top.
It took another four months to reassemble the statue on top of the pedestal. The French paid for the statue itself, but the United States paid for the pedestal when the statue was finished in 1886. This was called Bedclothes Island, but today we call it Liberty Island. The statue of Liberty has received a few renovations over the years. One of these renovations was the torch It had been damaged and was leaking rainwater. It was replaced in the 1980s. The original Torch is still on display. I'll show you where later in the video to get to Liberty Island, you have to take the ferry unless you're a really good swimmer.
But I don't recommend that A ferry leaves from two places, Liberty State Park in New Jersey and the battery on the southern tip of Manhattan. It takes about 15 minutes to get to Liberty Island. The island has a land area of just under 15 acres. This is the flagpole plaza, The information centre, cafe and bookstore and the gift shop. This is the Statue of Liberty Museum. This was opened in 2019, so it's still fairly new. We head down this way to get to the statue, there's plenty of areas to walk around here. That way you can see the statue up close From any angle you choose, the base of the statue looks like a star shape. These are the remnants of an old military base called Fort would it was used in the early 1800s but now it's the base of the statue of liberty.
This part is called the pedestal. When you buy a pedestal ticket, you can go anywhere on top of the base of the statue and all the way up to the observation deck. If you want to go inside the statue, you'll need to buy a ticket to go all the way up to the crown It's a little harder to get a hold of one of these tickets, you usually have to reserve a few weeks or even months in advance. However, since the pandemic, you can still go to the island but the public isn't allowed into any part of the pedestal or statue. Hopefully, that'll change soon to get to the inside of the statue will enter from here. These doors are called the centennial doors. Remember that you have to have a pedestal ticket to go inside and to hear to get into the pedestal lobby The original torch to the Statue of Liberty used to be right here in the centre When the museum opened in 2019.
The Torch was moved over there. Yeah, so now the pedestal lobby is wide open again. The old museum used to be here in this area but now almost everything has been moved over to the new museum. Mhm. Now it's time to make our way to the top of the pedestal. You've got two options. The elevator is here or the stairs are here. There are 192 steps to the top of the pedestal Mm. Inside here, you can see the stairs to go up and the stairs to climb back down. On the other side, there are seven floors inside the pedestal. So this is one P. Two P. And all the way up to seven P. The very top at level three P. You can go outside and view the surrounding areas and at level six P. Is the official observation deck. You can go outside either here or here.
Once outside, you get a good 360-degree view of anywhere in the harbour. If you have a ticket to go up to the crown, then head up to level seven p. This is where you start your climb up to the top of the statue. This is called the double helix stairway one way up and the other way to come back down these stairs fit right in the middle of the support structure. There's not a lot of room on here and I hope you're not afraid of heights if you get tired, there are a few resting places and just in case there is also an emergency elevator inside of the statue, not for regular public use, It carries only three people and can stop at a few of the platforms along the spiral stairway. During your climb, you'll be able to see the metal framework that holds up the statue.
The Top Of The Stairs
You can even see the individual ripples of the statue's dress and finally, we reached the top of the spiral stairs. This area is called the crown. Only a limited number of people can be up here at once. It's a great place to look out of the windows onto the harbour. There is a total of 25 windows on the crown on the inside. You can even see the individual patterns of the statues, hair on the back. You'll also notice some lights that will be turned on at night. Yeah, once you're finished up here, you can start making your way down the other side of the double helix stairway A lot of people ask about the torch in 1916, there was an explosion in new york harbour that damaged the statue. Since then, they've never reopened the torch for public access. However, maintenance workers still have to occasionally climb the torch right at the statue's neck.
You can see the gate that gives access to the arm. Once through here, there's a long ladder up the arm, it's not the easiest climb then onto another ladder and at the very top there's a tiny door that opens up to the fresh air outside, so hopefully, covid restrictions will continue to ease up and visits will once again be allowed inside of the statue. In the meantime,