Ever visited Lady Liberty? I have, lots of times.
First thing you notice – it costs to park. “Welcome to America, land of the free. That’ll be five bucks to park.”
Kidding aside, those rectangles in the crown are windows and if you climb up there you’ll pass right by ’em. They’re really tiny, about a foot by a foot and a half. And they open!
Anyway, the climb from the pedestal to the crown is made via a double-spiral staircase, one up and one down. The steps are about a foot and a half wide and a railing that just about meets your right hand with your arm hanging straight at your side. On the steep nose-to-ass climb you can see how the statue is constructed, the iron armature, the attachment points to the copper skin. It’s awesome. It’s a quick walk across the crown and then you’re on your way down.
Incidentally, they stopped allowing public access to the torch long, LONG before my time. Probably a good thing. That trip from the shoulder up the arm isn’t much more than a ladder and the walk around the torch is only about 7 feet or so in diameter. The railing around the torch is much shorter than comfortable, too. (I didn’t climb it, of course, but the original torch was on display in the pedestal for a long time. I’ve touched it. Today it’s in a museum somewhere, I think.)
The descending climb is where gets interesting. It’s as steep as the ascent. Remember where that railing is? Roughly mid-thigh? Without an ass in your face you clearly see all the way down to the pedestal floor with nothing but a railing not much more than knee-high to stop you. Each steep step requires strength – and some faith.
I took Pam up there once, “It’s something you just gotta see!”
Ya gotta understand, Pam doesn’t do heights. Uh uh. Not at all. The ascent wasn’t too bad but the descent had her seriously tensed. She made it through the day but the next day she couldn’t stand up. And stairs – which we had in the house – were damned near impossible without literally crawling.
It was several days before Pam’s legs were sort of returning to normal but one knee hasn’t been the same since. We call it her Liberty Knee, pronounced li-ber-tee-nee with the emphasis on the third syllable. Ask her about it sometime.
So it used to be you could just show up, park, take a ferry to Liberty Island and go on up. Today you need to book a reservation. There’s probably a hidden screening process involved, thanks to 9/11.
Absolutely worth it, though, to visit this iconic symbol of freedom.
(Written as a Facebook comment August 16, 2019, in response to someone’s post.)
