It’s about frakkin’ time.
The Department of Interior will reopen the Statue of Liberty’s crown to the general public on July 4, providing access to the top of the famed New York landmark for the first time since before the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar made the announcement this morning on NBC’s “Today Show,” which had its four main anchors begin the show live from within the crown.
“Today we’re announcing that on the Fourth of July we will open up the crown of the Statue of Liberty to the entire people of America,” Salazar told NBC’s Matt Lauer. More information will come during a 9 a.m. press conference.
The secretary said his mandated review of the logistics and safety concerns has concluded and that “improvements are going to happen” before the crown reopens in early July.
It’s ridiculous that we’ve gone so many years without access to one of our most visible and popular national monuments. I’m lucky enough to be old enough to have experienced being in the torch, as well as the crown. Simply being on Liberty Island is an awe-inspiring experience. If we’re not competent enough to keep terrorists off an island that’s only approachable by, gee, boats, then we should just give the statue back to France and be done with it.
And thirty people an hour to start? Feh. If you can screen thirty, you can screen more.
And really, so what if terrorists blow it up? We can fix it. Just like we rebuilt the World Trade Center.
Oh. Wait.
I thought that Lady Liberty’s toes were pretty neat.
I think when I went (Nov. 1988) you couldn’t go up the stairs.