:: travellingcari.com ::

For Safety, Lady Liberty’s Crown Will Stay Closed, Park Service Says

I’d like to say I get it, but I don’t.

“Our primary concerns about public access to the Statue of Liberty’s crown are safety and health concerns, not terrorism,” Daniel N. Wenk, the deputy director of the park service, said at a Congressional hearing on the subject, the first in the six years the crown has been closed.

Like others, I think that if that were really the case, it would have come up long before 9/11.

Mr. Wenk said the statue’s creator, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, “never intended or designed the Statue of Liberty as something to enter or climb.” Only after it opened in 1886 did the War Department — the predecessor to the Defense Department — begin letting “curiosity seekers” inside the sculpture, Mr. Wenk said. The statue’s torch was closed in 1916.

Again, I think it’s highly unlikely. If it were such a danger, then I think it would have been closed in 1916 along with the torch. It may well not have been its intended purposes, few things are used in that manner, but that doesn’t mean it should be used as an excuse 120+ years later. I have good memories of the Statue’s centennial when I was in elementary school. 

The Daily News’ editorial makes some interesting points, the majority of which I agree with.

And on it mercilessly went, with South Carolina GOPer Henry Brown saying that the climb up is something “our kids’ kids and our kids’ grandkids should get to experience,” as he did with his grandson Sept. 8, 2001.

Gemma and I were just talking over dinner the other night about her last visit to NYC and how glad we were to have done the Statue. To be honest, I’m not sure I’d go up it again. I’ve done it twice and I’m not sure I could get used to a view that did not include the Twin Towers. It seems so wrong. I’m happy with Lady Liberty as a landmark in New York Harbor, but I think it should be open for those who want to enjoy the view from the crown. The base just isn’t the same.