The ''Statue of Liberty'', or ''Lady Liberty'', is a replica of the

Statue of Liberty The Statue of Liberty (''Liberty Enlightening the World''; French: ''La Liberté éclairant le monde'') is a List of colossal sculpture in situ, colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor in New York City, in the U ...

(''Liberty Enlightening the World'') installed at

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

Alki Beach Park Alki Beach Park is a park located in the West Seattle neighborhood of Seattle, Washington that consists of the Elliott Bay beach between Alki Point and Duwamish Head. It has a of beachfront, and was the first public salt-water bathing beach on t ...

, in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...

. It was installed in 1952 by the

Boy Scouts of America The Boy Scouts of America (BSA, colloquially the Boy Scouts) is one of the largest scouting organizations and one of the largest youth organizations in the United States, with about 1.2 million youth participants. The BSA was founded i ...

and underwent a significant restoration in 2007 after repeated vandalism had damaged the sculpture.

Description and history

The sculpture was donated to the city by the

in 1952, as part of the

Strengthen the Arm of Liberty Strengthen the Arm of Liberty is the theme of the Boy Scouts of America's fortieth anniversary celebration in 1950. The campaign was inaugurated in February with a dramatic ceremony held at the base of the Statue of Liberty (''Liberty Enlighteni ...

campaign. It was installed in February 1952 at a site near the landing spot of the

Denny Party The Denny Party is a group of American pioneers credited with founding Seattle, Washington. They settled at Alki Point on November 13, 1851. History A wagon party headed by Arthur A. Denny left Cherry Grove, Illinois on April 10, 1851. The par ...

, who named the first settlement there "New York Alki" before moving to modern-day

Downtown Seattle Downtown is the central business district of Seattle, Washington. It is fairly compact compared with other city centers on the U.S. West Coast due to its geographical situation, being hemmed in on the north and east by hills, on the west by ...

. The site was near a location proposed for a "grand monument" in the 1911 city plan outlined by

Virgil Bogue Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...

. The original statue was constructed using stamped copper sheets and was repeatedly damaged by vandals. The entire statue was knocked off its base by vandals in 1975, requiring $350 in repairs funded by the city's parks department. A miniature version of the statue, left inside the larger statue's pedestal base, was re-discovered with a ripped arm that mirrored the acts of an earlier vandal. It was the site of a temporary memorial after the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

, with flowers and flags left around the statue. The statue was also used as the backdrop to several protests against the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the subsequent

Iraq War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق (Kurdish languages, Kurdish) , partof = the Iraq conflict (2003–present), I ...

The Northwest Programs for the Arts announced plans in 2004 to re-cast the entire sculpture in

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...

and began soliciting donations to fund the project. The statue's crown was stolen during the campaign, which received a $15,000 grant from the city's neighborhoods department to complete the project. The old statue was removed in July 2006 and sent to a

foundry A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal into a mold, and removing the mold material after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals pr ...

in Tacoma to be re-cast in bronze and painted copper green. The $140,000 restoration project was completed the following year and the statue was re-installed at Alki Beach on September 11, 2007. The statue is tall, about 5 percent of the original's height, and faces north towards

Elliott Bay Elliott Bay is a part of the Central Basin region of Puget Sound. It is in the U.S. state of Washington, extending southeastward between West Point in the north and Alki Point in the south. Seattle was founded on this body of water in the 1850s an ...

. A new, pedestal was also designed for the statue, sitting in a new plaza built by the city's parks department and dedicated in September 2008.

References

External links

*
Statue of Liberty – Alki, Washington
at Waymarking.com {{West Seattle, Seattle 1952 establishments in Washington (state) 1952 sculptures 2007 establishments in Washington (state) 2007 sculptures Bronze sculptures in Washington (state) Outdoor sculptures in Seattle

Sculptures of women in Washington (state) Statues in Washington (state) Vandalized works of art in Washington (state) West Seattle, Seattle

Description and history

See also

References

External links