by Stan Parchin
Tuesday August 23, 2005

A 47-foot-high replica of the Statue of Liberty, created at the end of the Nineteenth Century, will be reinstalled in the rear sculpture garden of the Brooklyn Museum in October 2005. The statue and its pedestal were erected in 1902 atop the Liberty Storage Warehouse of auctioneer William H. Flattau at 43 West 64 Street in Manhattan. The Athena Group, Athena Liberty-Lofts L.P. and Brickman Associates removed the statue from its original location and donated it to the Brooklyn Museum in 2002 when the Manhattan building was being renovated and turned into new cooperative apartments.

The statue has an iron framework that is covered with galvanized steel. Created in a foundry located in either Pennsylvania or Ohio, it is one-fifth the size of the original Statue of Liberty created by French sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi (1834-1904). From its erection until 1912, visitors could climb the sculpture's interior set of spiral stairs and view Broadway and Columbus Circle from inside its crown.

The new setting for the monumental replica of the Statue of Liberty will be the Brooklyn Museum's ground-level Frieda Schiff Warburg Memorial Sculpture Garden. The space houses architectural fragments from famous New York City buildings that no longer exist, such as the original Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan and Steeplechase Park in Coney Island. Beginning in Spring 2006, visitors to the museum will be able to watch the statue undergo restoration in the sculpture garden. This will include cleaning and refinishing its surface as well as constructing a new base.

The statue's donation to the Brooklyn Museum was made in honor of the heroic efforts of the Fire Department of New York, the New York Police Department, the Emergency Medical Services and the New York State Court Officers on September 11, 2001.

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From your Guide: Stan Parchin, Senior Correspondent for Museums and Special Exhibitions, is a specialist in ancient, late-medieval and Renaissance art and history. His interests include: the art and culture of Old and New Kingdom Egypt; the Italian and Northern Renaissances; Church history; and witchcraft, heresy and social dissent in late-medieval and early Modern Europe.

Image credit:
Statue of Liberty (1902), New York City, 2002.
© Justin Van Soest, 2002.
Photo courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum; used with permission.