Pictures: Rare Views of Statue of Liberty in Time for Reopening

Brick by Brick
Photograph by Richard Drew, AP
Superstorm Sandy whacked the U.S. East Coast last October, flooding cities, felling trees, and tearing apart buildings. The storm knocked Lady Liberty when it charged over Liberty Island—the statue's 12-acre, oval home—causing nearly $59 million in damage.
Walkways around the Statue of Liberty (pictured) were among the structures damaged during the October 2012 storm. National Park Service workers from as far away as California and Alaska pitched in to help with repairs.
On Thursday, the Fourth of July holiday, National Liberty Island and its iconic statue are set to reopen to the public. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell and New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg will be among the officials attending the reopening ceremony on Liberty Island Thursday morning.
—Jane J. Lee
Published July 3, 2013
Observations
Photograph by Paul Chesley, National Geographic
Photographed from a rare vantage point, several of the Statue of Liberty's 25 observation windows look out over New York Harbor in an undated picture.
Above the windows are three of the seven skyscraping rays said by some to represent the seven seas and continents of the world.
Published July 3, 2013
354
Photograph courtesy Jet Lowe, Library of Congress
A spiral staircase leads visitors through the Statue of Liberty's guts to its neck. From there a smaller staircase leads into the crown. In all, visitors must climb 354 steps to get to the top.
Due to evacuation concerns, crown access was restricted to 240 visitors per day after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, a far cry from the pre-9/11 limit, noted National Park Service spokesperson Mindi Rambo in a 2009 interview.
"It used to be, you take a step and you wait, you take a step and you wait ... your nose against the spine of the person in front of you," she said.
Published July 3, 2013
Headgear
Photograph courtesy Historic American Engineering Record, Library of Congress
Dentally challenged adolescents everywhere might be reassured to know that even the Statue of Liberty wears headgear. As seen in 1984, strap-iron armature holds the statue's copper skin in place.
Lady Liberty's face, according to some historians, is modeled after that of the mother of the statue's designer, French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi.
The statue was a gift to the U.S. from France to commemorate the friendship forged during the American Revolution. The colossus was formally dedicated on October 28, 1886.
Published July 3, 2013
Long Way Down
Photograph from Fox Photos/Getty Images
Circa-1930 tourists peer out of the Statue of Liberty's crown at a photographer on the torch, which had been closed to the public since a 1916 explosion on a nearby island. The distance from the flame's tip to the ground is 305 feet (93 meters).
Cradled in the statue's left arm is a tablet bearing the date the 13 American colonies declared their independence in Roman numerals: July IV, MDCCLXXVI.
Published July 3, 2013
Skeletal Supports
Photograph courtesy Historic American Engineering Record, Library of Congress
The Statue of Liberty's angular steel skeleton meets its elegantly undulating copper toga in this 1984 picture.
The statue's exterior is made of copper about as thick as two pennies stacked together, according to Rambo. The copper sheets—about 300 total—are held together with iron bands.
The skeleton's engineer, Gustave Eiffel, would in 1889 shock—and later seduce—Paris when his structural handiwork stood "naked" in the form of the Eiffel Tower.
Published July 3, 2013
Stamping Out Slavery
Photograph courtesy Historic American Engineering Record, Library of Congress
Invisible to tourists, the Statue of Liberty's 25-foot-long (7.6-meter-long) left foot, pictured in 1984, brushes against a little-known detail that nevertheless loomed large in sculptor Frederic Bartholdi's design.
Broken chains beneath the statue's toga symbolize freedom from oppression in general, and the United States' abolition of slavery—just 20 years prior to the statue's dedication—in particular.
Published July 3, 2013
Illuminating Makeover
Photographs by Jet Lowe, courtesy Historic American Engineering Record, Library of Congress
The Statue of Liberty underwent a major renovation for its 1986 centennial, with the most obvious change being the replacement of the torch.
The old flame (left), shown in 1984, featured amber-colored windows and was lit from within. The openings of the old torch, now in an adjoining museum, let in rain and led to corrosion of the arm's support structure, Rambo said.
The new torch (right), pictured under construction in 1984, has a flame with an unbroken copper skin covered in 24-karat gold leaf, and is lit from the outside.
Published July 3, 2013
Only Route
Photograph courtesy Historic American Engineering Record, Library of Congress
A narrow, 40-foot-long (12-meter-long) ladder is the only way to the torch, the Statue of Liberty's highest point.
The torch has been off-limits to visitors since the "Black Tom" explosion of July 30, 1916. Debris from the attack on U.S. ammunition supplies on nearby Black Tom Island—now a landfill—in New Jersey, pierced the statue.
The 9/11 attacks, meanwhile, prompted the full closure of Liberty Island, which was reopened a hundred days later.
Published July 3, 2013
See pictures of other iconic sites turned into ghost towns by Hurricane Sandy
Photograph by Andrew Kelly, Reuters
Published July 3, 2013