Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Lady Liberty Lights Up the Huddled Masses Outside the Brooklyn Museum

One of the more unusual pieces in the Brooklyn Museum's collection of outdoor sculpture and architectural fragments currently on exhibit is this "Lady Liberty," a thirty-foot replica of the original Statue of Liberty.

This replica was commissioned about 1900 by the Russian-born William H. Flattau to sit at the summit of his eight-story Liberty Warehouse on West 64th Street. At the time, this was one of the highest points on Manhattan's Upper West Side, according to the Brooklyn Museum.

Until 1912, visitors could walk up an interior staircase (see the little door in the base?) to enjoy a view of Columbus Circle from an opening in the statue's head.

Photo by MK Metz

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Would it be wrong of me if I get one of those for the little brats (no more than 9 years old) who are allowed to play on their deck until 11 o'clock every night? They keep me awake since they're mere feet away from my apartment bedroom window and I've got to get up by 4:30 every morning. (And where are the parents?) I don't have the heart to yell at the kids . . . they're not misbehaving just unsupervised. Can I report it to social services?