June 9, 2009
Statue of Liberty crown tickets go on sale Saturday
(Update: Statue of Liberty crown tickets are now on sale. See screen shots from the official website, which is hard to reach, but is indeed selling tickets.)
Tickets to the crown of the Statue of Liberty will go on sale for $3 starting Saturday at 10 a.m., the National Park Service announced Monday.
But access to the spiral staircase will not be available to the masses; only around 30 people per hour will be allowed up to the crown in ranger-led groups of 10.
Just one month ago, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced the crown will reopen July 4 for the first time since the terror attacks of Sept, 11, 2001.
Crown tickets can be reserved up to a year in advance through Statue Cruises, the only company licensed to ferry the public to Liberty and Ellis islands. The $3 crown fee will be on top of the regular ferry ticket, currently priced at $12 for adults, $10 for seniors and $5 for children. Tickets can be purchased online or by calling 877- LADY-TIX (877-523-9849.)
There are a few restrictions to keep in mind. If you plan to visit during the hottest days of summer, you may be in for a disappointment. It wasn’t well publicized, but even before Sept. 11, 2001, the crown closed on hot days as the interior of the statue heated like an oven, making it an even more precarious climb up the 354 steps. Last month the NPS said it will resume the “policy of closing the Statue during the hottest parts of the day; whenever the outside temperature reaches 90 degrees Fahrenheit.”
So if you’re booking a summer climb, shoot for an early morning entry.
Also, from the new NPS FAQ on crown ticketing:Each customer may reserve a maximum of 4 tickets. Only one reservation is allowed during any 6 month period. Children must be at least 4-feet tall. Names of all ticket users must be provided at the time of purchase to be printed on the tickets. When presenting the tickets to access the Statue on Liberty Island, each ticket holder will be required to show photo ID (except minors without ID) matching the name printed on the ticket.
Another important under-publicized fact to keep in mind: There is only a two-year window to get to the crown this way. The May 8 reopening announcement included this nugget: ““The Statue of Liberty will be open for the next two years. Then it will be closed again for work on a long-term solution that will improve safety and security permanently.”
If you do the math, that’s about 174,720 who will be able to visit the crown in the next two years combined, as the statue is open every day except December 25.
In 2008, the NPS records show 3,555,244 people visited Liberty Island, still down from the record-setting 5,509,706 who visited in 2000, the last full-year before the terror attacks.
The new system will add another tier to the ticketing system that already leaves the unprepared disappointed. When the statue reopened in 2004, the National Park Service created a monument pass, allowing a limited number of visitors to pass through an extra level of security and into the statue’s pedestal. Only about 2,500 free monument passes are available daily. You need a pass to get into the museum located in the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, out on her observation decks and into an interior viewing platform that lets you look up into the statue just near toe-level. With the monument pass, you can see the statue’s original torch, the plaque of Emma Lazarus’ “The New Colossus” (“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free, …”) as well as model forms used to cast the statue.
Free time-stamped monument passes can be reserved in advance, although a very limited number can be obtained same-day at the ticket booths. (However, the entire day’s allotment is sometimes gone within five minutes.)
Trips to the islands are best started first thing in the morning, and the NPS website now states “If you wish to visit both island’s, we strongly suggest arriving on a ferry leaving mainland by 1PM.
A final note: There are no plans to ever open the Statue of Liberty torch to the public. It’s been closed since 1916 when German saboteurs blew up an arms depot just west of the statue in New Jersey. The explosion damaged Liberty’s arm, “weakening the structure to the point that all public access to the torch immediately ended,” the NPS said in a 2004 report.
Update: A spokesperson for Statue Cruises has e-mailed more details about the new Crown Access tickets, which will automatically include monument and museum access. It may sound complicated, but actually makes a lot of sense once you get into the ordering screens: “So now a visitor will choose between the two departure locations, then between a Flex Ticket and Reserve Ticket, and if they select Reserve Ticket they’ll have Reserve Ticket without Monument Access, Reserve Ticket with Monument Access and Reserve Ticket with Crown Access. As Reserve Tickets with Monument Access tend to sell out quickly, we expect Crown Access tickets to sell out even faster.”
(Ticketing updates will be posted here as available.)
Earlier: It’s official: Statue of Liberty crown will reopen July 4
New firm takes over Statue of Liberty ferry route today (2008)
Fire safety keeping Statue of Liberty’s top closed (2006)
June 9, 2009 7:01 AM in Sightsology
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