The Lady in The Harbor

Statue of Liberty arrived in 1886 here on this Island and she held up OK during the storm. She and the Fort, built long before any of our modern conveniences seemed to come through fine. Where we suffered a lot of damage was infrastructure. Cobblestones, docks, support buildings that contained locker rooms, communication centers, fencing, some of our outdoor exhibits, interpretive panels, way finding exhibits, that suffered a lot of damage. Visually most recognizable to the visitors was damage to the docks. New docks are going to be constructed here at Liberty Island. We’re in the process of relaying about 50,000 pavers and walkways. The Statue of Liberty is actually an engineering marvel for her day. She is actually designed to sway in a wind. At her head she is designed to sway roughly 3 inches off center, her arm is actually designed to sway in a circular pattern roughly 6 inches off center. They say that in order for her to get to that kind of motion, it would be a category four hurricane would have to enter the bay. The National Park Service is working with FEMA and other federal agencies within the realm of historic preservation to sort of pool our resources, and really be as efficient as possible in not only repairing New York’s cultural resources by making them resilient for the next storm. You have that really big one-two punch of helping the United States understand where it comes from, and what it stands for, but also contributing immensely to the economy of New York. And getting that up and running again is of paramount importance. Ellis Island is important as well as the Statue of Liberty both are international heritage icons. What was decimated during the storm is the basements and that’s where most of our infrastructure was. Because we are not able to control the climate in the building, we have removed all the artifacts out and placed them in storage so they do not deteriorate. Our goal is to greet another 3 million people that’s what she is usually expecting each year and we hope that on July 4th we will begin that process again. She ’s a little lonely waiting for the public out here.