May 19, 2006

House OKs $1 mln to reopen Statue of Liberty crown

The U.S. House of Representatives has approved $1 million for security enhancements at the Statue of Liberty in hopes of reopening the crown to tourists for the first time since the attacks on September 11, 2001.

But when the lower portion of the statue was reopened to the public in August 2004, it wasn't the threat of terrorism that kept the crown closed, officials said.

"The place was a firetrap," Edie Shean Hammond, spokesperson for the National Park Service said in a 2004 interview with NewYorkology's editor (for a story published in the Chicago Tribune.) With only one entrance, no firewalls and a several building code violations, the top would have been difficult to evacuate in case of fire. "That work of art really becomes a chimney," she said in the October 2004 interview.

The House approved the funding Thursday at the request of Rep. Anthony Weiner, (D-Brooklyn and Queens), who was quoted in the Post today as saying "We need to break the ties that bind Miss Liberty and that continue to make her a laughingstock for al Qaeda."

(NewYorkology will follow this story as it develops.)

Earlier: How to get a pass for the Statue of Liberty tour
Statue of Liberty to reopen
NewYorkology Basics: Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island

May 19, 2006 08:18 AM in Architecture, Museums, Sightsology

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