The Statue of Liberty has presided over New York Harbor since 1886. Most people know that she was a gift from France and that she’s greeted millions of immigrants arriving in the United States. But here are a few facts that you might not know.
1. SHE WAS BORN AT A DINNER PARTY.
One night in the 1860s, French author Edouard de Laboulaye was entertaining some dinner-party guests when he came up with a grandiose idea: France and the United States should jointly build a monument honoring democracy and the friendship between the two countries. One of Laboulaye’s guests, sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, was so intrigued that he came up with the idea for the Statue of Liberty. Bartholdi officially named her Liberty Enlightening the World and hoped that the statue would enlighten his fellow Frenchmen about the importance of democracy in government.
2. SHE ALMOST HAD NO PLACE TO STAND.
The Statue of Liberty is regarded as a treasure today, but when she was first built, many Americans had no use for her. The people of France raised about $400,000 so that Bartholdi could complete the monument, and the United States then had to raise about $100,000 for the pedestal. But by the time Lady Liberty was finished in 1884, the U.S. was having trouble coming up with the money. During the late 1800s, the nation was in the midst of a financial depression, and many Americans didn’t want to pay good money for a statue that hadn’t even been made at home. The New York Times complained, “No true patriot can countenance any such expenditures for bronze females in the present state of our finances.” (The newspaper was mistaken about the metal—the Statue of Liberty is covered in copper.) Meanwhile, Congress refused to pay for the pedestal because the statue seemed more like a gift to the City of New York than to the entire country. And New York’s Governor Grover Cleveland vetoed a $50,000 state grant for the pedestal.
The Buffalo Bills are the only NFL team to lose 4 consecutive Super Bowls.
Finally, in 1885, Joseph Pulitzer—owner of the New York World newspaper—wrote, “It would be an irrevocable disgrace to New York City and the American Republic to have France send us this splendid gift without our having provided even so much as a landing space for it.” Claiming that the World’s working-class readers could save the day, he promised to publish in his paper the names of people who gave even small contributors to the pedestal fund. It worked. Donations poured in—more than 120,000 readers gave nearly $102,000 to place the statue on her pedestal.
3. SHE WAS A “FIRST” LADY.
On October 28, 1886, the Statue of Liberty was installed on Bedloe’s Island (now Liberty Island). There were fireworks and speeches from dignitaries, including President Grover Cleveland—who praised the statue that he’d failed to finance as governor. A month later, the Statue of Liberty became the country’s first electric lighthouse when nine electric arc lamps were installed in her torch and five were placed around her star-shaped base. The torch, at 305 feet above sea level, was visible 24 miles out to sea. It acted as a navigational light until 1902.
4. SHE’S THIN-SKINNED.
Lady Liberty’s outer copper coating is just 0.09 of an inch thick, thinner than two pennies. And her green color is the result of patina, tarnish on the copper.
5. SOMETHING’S DIFFERENT ABOUT HER FOOT.
Most humans have what experts call a “normal foot”—the “big” toe is the longest. But about 20 percent of people have what’s called Morton’s Toe—meaning the second toe is longer than the big toe. (The condition is named for American orthopedist Dudley J. Morton, who discovered in the early 1900s that a short big toe could cause painful foot disorders.) But long before it was called Morton’s Toe, the condition was known as Grecian Foot—because in classical and Renaissance art, a long second toe was considered to be beautiful. Bartholdi had always found inspiration in the statues of the ancient Greeks and Romans, so he designed Lady Liberty with one of the classic features of ancient Greek art: the Grecian Foot.
The current NYPD uniform was adopted in 1853.
Bartholdi had always been drawn to large works, and he decided that his statue would be the largest since ancient times. (The largest in the ancient world was the 100-foot-tall Colossus of Rhodes built during the 3rd century B.C. and was later destroyed in an earthquake.) The Statue of Liberty is just over 111 feet tall from her heel to the top of her head. Her face is 10 feet wide (Bartholdi used his mother as the model), her mouth is three feet wide, and her nose is 4½ feet long. Her bust measures 36 feet around, and her feet are 25 feet long, which, shoe experts say, makes her sandals the equivalent of size 879.
7. A POET CHANGED HER IMAGE.
Originally the Statue of Liberty was intended to be a simple symbol of democracy, but her proximity to Ellis Island also made her an icon of hope for new immigrants. Another reason for the symbolism is the poem “The New Colossus,” which is inscribed on a plaque attached to the statue’s pedestal. In the poem, Lady Liberty declares, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
But the poem didn’t appear on the plaque until 1903. Its author, Emma Lazarus, worked with poverty-stricken Jewish immigrants who arrived in the United States after fleeing anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe. She wrote “The New Colossus” for them. Lazarus died in 1887, and her poem was forgotten until it resurfaced in a Manhattan used bookstore several years later. People found it so moving that, more than 20 years after it was written, it became part of the statue.
“People say New Yorkers can’t get along. Not true. I saw two New Yorkers, complete strangers, sharing a cab: One guy took the tires and the radio; the other guy took the engine.”
—David Letterman
First SNL cast member to say, “Live from New York, it’s Saturday night!”: Chevy Chase.