Statue of Liberty

The Statue of Liberty is the most recognisable monument in America — a 93-metre copper colossus designed by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi with a structural skeleton engineered by Gustave Eiffel, gifted by France in 1886 to celebrate the centennial of American independence and the shared values of liberty and democracy. The statue has welcomed every immigrant who arrived by ship to New York harbour, and its image — torch raised, crown of seven rays representing the seven continents — has become the universal symbol of freedom and new beginnings.

The statue stands on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, accessible by ferry from Battery Park in Manhattan or Liberty State Park in New Jersey. The pedestal museum (free with ferry ticket) traces the statue's construction and the French-American friendship that produced it. Crown access (a steep 377-step climb through the statue's interior to the windows in the crown) requires a separate ticket booked months in advance, but the pedestal observation deck provides excellent views of the harbour, the Manhattan skyline, and the statue's copper surface at close range — green from over a century of oxidation that forms a protective patina.

The statue was originally a dull copper colour that turned green over its first 20 years, and early proposals to restore the original colour were rejected because the patina had become inseparable from the statue's identity. The engineering is as impressive as the symbolism: Eiffel's iron skeleton allows the copper skin to move independently in the wind, and the statue sways up to 7.6 centimetres in 80 km/h winds — flexible enough to survive hurricanes while appearing to stand perfectly still.