The Statue Of Liberty

The famous Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor was designed by a Frenchman, Frederick A. Bartholdi,
a Freemason.

The Grand Lodge of New York laid the cornerstone with Masonic ceremonies on August 5, 1885.

Liberty Enlightening the World, known more commonly as the Statue of Liberty, is a statue given to the United States by France in 1885, standing at Liberty Island in the mouth of the Hudson River in New York Harbor as a welcome to all visitors, immigrants, and returning Americans. The copper statue, dedicated on October 28, 1886, commemorates the centennial of the United States and is a gesture of friendship between the two nations. The sculptor was Frederic Auguste Bartholdi. Gustave Eiffel, the designer of the Eiffel Tower, engineered the internal structure. Eugène Viollet-le-Duc was responsible for the choice of copper in the statue's construction and adoption of the Repoussé technique. The Statue of Liberty is one of the most recognizable icons of the U.S. and worldwide, and, in a more general sense, represents liberty and escape from oppression. The Statue of Liberty was, from 1886 until the Jet age, often the first glimpse of the United States for millions of immigrants after ocean voyages from Europe. It's said that il Sancarlone or the Colossus of Rhodes inspired it.

The Statue of Liberty is located on Liberty Island in New York harbor, about 1.6 miles southwest of the southern tip of Manhattan. The island was officially called "Bedloe's Island" until it was renamed in 1956, but was popularly called "Liberty Island" much earlier; O. Henry refers to it by that name in a 1911 story.

Liberty holds a torch in her right hand and a tablet in her left. The tablet shows the inscription JULY IV MDCCLXXVI.
(July 4, 1776, the date of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence).

One of her feet stands on chains, symbolizing the acquired freedom. The USIA states that the seven spikes in the crown represent the seven seas and seven continents.

The height from ground to the top of the torch is 305 feet; this includes the foundation and the pedestal. The height of the statue itself, from the top of the base to the torch, is 151 feet. The statue weighs 204 tons and the pedestal weighs 24,500 tons.

The statue was built from thin copper plates hammered into wooden forms through a process known as repoussé. The formed plates were then mounted onto a steel skeleton. The pedestal is built from stone and Rosendale natural cement.

A museum on the second floor of the pedestal, presents the history of the statue. Inside the statue, a spiral stairway with rest seats at every third turn winds up to the observation deck in the crown. Before 1916, the ladder in the right arm holding the torch was open to the public, but it has for many years been restricted to staff use, for maintaining the lighting equipment in the torch. The interior of the statue has been closed to the public since 2001

The poem "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus was engraved on a bronze plaque in 1903, after Lazarus' death, and 20 years after it was written. The plaque is located on a wall of the museum, which is in the base of the statue. (It has never been engraved on the monument itself, despite such depictions in editorial cartoons.

In its famous final lines, it says:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

Although Liberty Island is closer to New Jersey than to New York, and its physical location is within the borders of Hudson County, New Jersey, Liberty Island has been part of New York since the issuance in 1664 of the colonial charter that created New Jersey. Portions of nearby Ellis Island that were formed by subsequent landfilling are, under a Supreme Court decision, part of New Jersey, but that decision had no effect on Liberty Island. The island is owned by the federal government and is administered by the National Park Service.