This was on the ferry to the statue.
This is the old flame in the base of the statue.
This is the view inside the statue.
Us inside the statue.
We made it to the top!
This was the view of her hand from the top.
We were outside in the way down.
This was a view from the base of the statue of New York City.
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On November, 2000 Kathleen and I went to see the Statue of Liberty. We have been trying to go to each of the sightseeing things in the city while we can. It is cheap and most importantly we get to spend the time together.
We drove to the Staten Island Ferry and took that across the bay to Manhattan. Once there we went to Battery Park and bought tickets on the Liberty Island Ferry. As you can see Kathleen and I took turns lighting off the cannon that was there. Fortunatley there was no line and we went directly to the ferry and hopped on.
On our way over you get a great view of the statue, I took a photo of Kathleen that is on the left. We got off and went to the line to climb to the top of the statue. There was a decent line so we had to wait about 2 hours (to the top), but that was ok because we met the people around us and had a good time.
In the main entrance is the old flame from before the restoration. After that you start climbing the base of the statue which totals 334 steps to the top. I remember doing this as a kid with my mom and it seemed like a really long way, but this time it did not seem that bad. I guess that is the diffrence of being a few feet taller.
As you exit the base and enter the actual statue you end up seeing the inside of it. It is rather intresting. The whole inside is metal scaffolding and ribs to hold the copper plates in place. One of the parks people said that in the late 80's when it was restored they had to replace all the metal ribs becasue the original design had them coated in asbestos to avoid corrosion.
Unfortunatley the ventilation in not that nice so even though it was about 70 outside it was still hot at the top. I was glad we went when we did and not during the summer. It was actually not too bad for us but the weather outside was cool so that is why.
The stairs switch from a conventional staircase to a spiral staircase once you reach the actual statue. I was not pleased with the setup because the railing only came about 3/4 of the way up my leg and the drop was rather large. Also it was very steep vertically upwards. It was one of the most unusual staircases I had ever seen.
Once we finaly got to the top, we could see out of the glass in the Statue's crown. The neatest thing is looking down and seeing the scroll she is holding and seeing her arm. The view was good that day.
We came back down the stairs and went to the base which had multiple viewing decks, we walked all over that thing. Once we finished there we went to the base which has a museum in it.
It had explinations of how the statue was erected, how we got it (from the French), and how it was restored.
As you can see there were copper replicas of her face and toes. They are not green because they are not exposed to the elements. We spent a little while there then left the base. We went back to the ferry and hopped a ride back to Manhattan. We had a great day, the weather was beautiful. On an intresting note, then very next day two men had gotten to the top broken a window and clibmed out to her spikes and hung flags in protest for something. It was intresting.
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