Statue of Liberty’s Crown Reopens After More Than Two Years

Statue of Liberty’s Crown finally reopens to the public after being closed for two and a half years, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Oct 12, 2022By Angela Davic, News, Discoveries, In-depth Reporting, and Analysis
The Statue of Liberty's Crown open for visits.
The Statue of Liberty, New York

 

The Statue of Liberty’s Crown offers a rare opportunity to see the sculpture’s structural foundations. You can also get a bird’s-eye perspective over New York Harbor. In order to visit the crown, it is necessary to climb 215 steps or take an elevator. The elevator leads you to the 360-degree outdoor observation deck, the statue’s pedestal.

Conditions for Visiting the Statue of Liberty’s Crown

The Statue of Liberty's Crown. visits
Via CNN

 

The Statue of Liberty closed in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. “The health and safety of people working and entering Liberty is our number one priority”, the NPS said in a statement.

 

The Statue of Liberty’s Crown has been accessible to visitors since Tuesday. Due to the popularity of the crown, visitors need to make reservations in advance. There are also limited tickets available each day.

 

Crown tickets, which costs $24.30 for general admission, went on sale yesterday. “Today was a soft opening with limited ticket availability through the end of October”, says National Parks Service spokesperson Jerry Willis. “We will be doing an official crown reopening on October 28, the 136th anniversary of the statue’s dedication in 1886.”

 

The Statue of Liberty's torch
The original Statue of Liberty torch is on display at Liberty Island’s Statue of Liberty Museum. Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images.

 

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There are a restricted number of people for visiting the Statue of Liberty’s Crown: ten at the time, and about six groups per hour. This includes round-trip ferry service from New York’s Battery Park or New Jersey’s Liberty Park.

 

Visitors also get access to the Island’s Statue of Liberty Museum, which opened in 2019 after a $100 million renovation. There is also a chance to visit the National Museum of Immigration‘s home – Ellis Island.

 

The Statue of Liberty: 4-Million Visitors in the Last Few Years

The Statue of Liberty's Crown, Bartholdi
Via Wikipedia

 

French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi designed Lady Liberty as a gift from France to the USA. The statue is inaugurated in 1886 and is a symbol of freedom around the world.

 

About 300 copper sheets, or roughly two U.S. coins put together, measure just .09 inches thick and make up the patinated exterior. Using this technique, craftsmen molded the statue by heating the copper and hammering it against a wooden mold to produce the desired shape.

 

The Statue of Liberty's Crown staircase
The double helix staircase that leads to the Statue of Liberty’s crown. Photo courtesy of the National Parks Service.

 

New York City’s largest work of art is 305 feet tall. Situated in New York Harbor overlooking New York and New Jersey, the statue routinely drew more than four million visitors in the several years. About 1.5 million visited in 2021, according to the Department of the Interior.

 

One bad thing is a narrow double-helix spiral staircase that requires 162 more steps. That is why the National Park Service always warns people about respiratory conditions, mobility impairment, claustrophobia, or vertigo.

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By Angela DavicNews, Discoveries, In-depth Reporting, and AnalysisAngela is a journalism student at the Faculty of Political Science in Belgrade and received a scholarship for continued education in Prague. She completed her internship at the daily newspaper DANAS and worked as an executive editor at Talas.