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The Statue of Liberty was built in October 1886. The monument is a symbol of the freedom of the people of America, a symbol of the country and New York.
The statue was created by the sculptor and architect Frederic Bartholdi. The sculpture had to be made by 1876. Its completion was planned to coincide with the centenary of the Declaration of Independence of America. The creation of the statue is a joint work of the French and Americans. The pedestal was created by the Americans, and the statue was made in France. In New York, the statue was pieced together.
More money was needed than expected. For this reason, they organized a large-scale fundraising campaign and various events. To calculate the dimensions of the structure of a huge monument, the help of a specialist was needed. A.G. Eiffel developed the design of a reliable support made of iron and a frame that allowed the copper shell to move freely and at the same time maintain the balance of the statue.
Citizens of America with not a special desire to hand over money. For this reason, there were difficulties in collecting the required amount. D. Pulitzer published several articles in the World newspaper in which he appealed to the Americans to allocate funds for a good cause. Criticism turned out to be very harsh, and this led to the desired result.
By the beginning of August 1885, America managed to get the necessary amount. By this time, the French had completed their work and delivered parts of the monument to New York. The Statue of Liberty had three hundred and fifty parts, which took up two hundred and fourteen boxes. Within four months, all parts of the statue were assembled. With a very large number of people on October 26, 1886, the legendary monument was opened. The centenary gift was ten years late. An interesting fact - the hand and the torch were collected even earlier and they were put on display in 1876 in Philadelphia.
The Statue of Liberty is set on a pedestal on the grounds of Fort Wood, built for the War of 1812. It has the shape of a star. Initially, for a number of decades, the monument was serviced by the American Lighthouse Service. And only in 1924 he received the status of a National Monument. In 1937, the territory of the attraction was increased, covering the entire area of Bedloe Island. Nineteen years later, Bedloe was renamed Liberty Island.
The Statue of Liberty is located in New York, on Liberty Island, which is located three kilometers southwest of the coast of Manhattan.
In 1982 the monument was restored. US leader Ronald Reagan followed this process. They organized a fundraiser again and raised eighty-seven million dollars. In 1984, the attraction was included in a number of monuments of world importance. In early July 1986, the complex was reopened to the public. This was done in honor of the statue's centenary.
The Statue of Liberty is a steel frame with a total weight of 125 tons. Gustave Eiffel (French engineer) was invited to design and build the steel structure, and Maurice Koehlin (French-Swiss Civil Engineer) continued his work.
The frame is constructed in such a way that inside the monument you can safely move around and even climb the spiral staircases to the top. There are 354 steps to the main observation deck located in the crown. Inside the pedestal is a museum, which can be reached by elevator. The crown has twenty-five windows, symbolizing the jewels of the Earth and the rays of the sun that illuminate the world. The seven rays of the crown symbolize the seven seas and seven continents. To climb to the top of the pedestal, you need to overcome one hundred and ninety-two steps. Thirty-one tons of copper was spent on the ebb of the statue.
From above, the steel skeleton is covered with copper sheets masterfully minted in wooden molds with a thickness of only 2.37 mm and a total weight of 31 tons. The copper plates spliced together form the silhouette of the statue. Copper was supplied to France from Russia. One leg of the statue stands on broken shackles - so Bartholdi (French sculptor) symbolically showed the acquisition of freedom. On the plate in the left hand of the Statue of Liberty, the date of the signing of the Declaration of Independence is July 4, 1776. The cement base of the Statue of Liberty weighs approximately 27,000 tons.
- Initially, the Statue of Liberty was made for the Egyptians as a gift, in honor of the discovery of Suez, but Egypt refused the gift.
- Initially, there was a lantern in the hand of the statue, however, the secular public did not appreciate this idea, so it was decided to replace the lantern with a torch. This statue was supposed, in addition to decorating the city, to light the way for sailors, that is, its other purpose was the role of a lighthouse.
- The statue has a green color, because its shell is copper sheets, which over time, due to atmospheric phenomena, changed color.
- To date, it has been recorded that an ocean wind at a speed of 100 kilometers per hour is able to shake the Statue of Liberty by 7.62 centimeters, and its torch by 12.7 centimeters.
- The Statue of Liberty often appears in the frames of various films. The creators of "Titanic" also shot one episode against the backdrop of the famous sculpture - and made a historical mistake. In the film, the statue has a familiar greenish tint. But in 1912, during the events of the film drama, the copper of the monument had not yet oxidized and was of a noble metallic color.
- Since 1984, the monument has been under the protection of UNESCO.
Entrance to the observation deck, as well as visiting the museum located inside the statue, is free. But a small amount will have to be paid to take the ferry to Bedloe Island. You will have to spend time: visitors are carefully inspected. Precautions were stepped up after the September 11, 2001 attacks. The crown of the Statue of Liberty became open to the public only in 2009.
