Did you know that the Statue of Liberty, this universal symbol of freedom, is technically French? Yep, one of America’s most iconic monuments was born in France to Mr. Frederic Bartholdi, a French sculptor who modeled her after his mother, and given to the people of America as a gift of friendship from the French people. 130 years ago today, she arrived in new York Harbour after a long trip across the Atlantic Ocean in 350 individual pieces. These pieces took about a year to be reassembled and the 450,000-pound statue was officially dedicated on October 28, 1886, by President Cleveland. To celebrate the anniversary of the Statue of Liberty’s arrival in the United States, google created a cool little doodle, bien sur!
Did you know lady Liberty has a little sister in Paris? Well, actually, she has quite a few… but there’s a little (11.50 metres or 37 feet 9 inches) one on l’Île aux Cygnes near Pont de Grenelle in the 15th arrondissement that was given to Paris by the Americans as kind of a return gift. The Parisian statue of Liberty faces west in the direction of its American sibling and if you go to Pont Mirabeau, or walk along the quai Louis Bleriot between Quai Mirabeau and the Pont de Grenelle, you can snap a pretty awesome picture of both the Eiffel Tower AND the statue of Liberty (the inside armature for the American statue of Liberty were actually made by Eiffel!)
Everything is bigger in America, including the Statue of Liberty 😉
And while Washington, DC doesn’t have a replica of the Statue of Liberty we do have a fountain designed by its creator, Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, in one of my favourite hidden gem garden, the Bartholdi Park, right behind the US Botanical Garden.
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