Wednesday marks 140 years since the dedication of the Statue of Liberty, since becoming one of the most iconic landmarks in the world. \u00a0<\/p>\n
But Lady Liberty could have suffered a very different fate more than 40 years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf this renovation hadn\u2019t been done, there was a possibility [that] it could have been a catastrophic collapse,\u201d Peter Lehrer, who helped lead the ambitious project to restore the Statue of Liberty, said.<\/p>\n
At the time, Lehrer was just a few years into launching a construction company. His firm was awarded the contract to restore and repair Lady Liberty in the lead up to 1986, which marked 100 years since its dedication.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew [that] if we screwed it up, that would be the end of our business,\u201d Lehrer recalled.<\/p>\n
He said that there were a lot of restrictions on how to go about repairing the Statue of Liberty, which meant that they had to get creative.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was no plan. There was no book. There was no one who told us how to do it,\u201d he said. \u201cWe just had to figure it out as we went.\u201d<\/p>\n
The scaffolding could not touch the landmark. It was built all around her. The reason? High winds could cause the scaffolding to damage the statue, according to Lehrer.<\/p>\n
They used liquid nitrogen inside the statue to remove a layer of paint, and baking soda took care of the tar behind that paint, which was water-damaged from over the years.<\/p>\n
There were 1,700 steel bars inside the statue meant to stabilize her, but they had deteriorated over time.<\/p>\n
Lehrer said they built effectively a small factory on the island, taking out three bars at a time to not destabilize Lady Liberty. They had to heat the steel to mold it to make exact replicas for each bar being replaced.<\/p>\n
On Oct. 28, 1986, President Ronald Reagan came to New York City to help light the new torch on the Statue of Liberty<\/p>\n
\u201cWe too dare to hope, hope that our children will always find here the land of liberty in a land that is free,\u201d he said at the time.<\/p>\n
Lehrer said that out of all the construction projects, the work on the Statue of Liberty is what he is most proud of.<\/p>\n
About 12 million immigrants passed the Statue of Liberty on their way to Ellis Island between 1894 and 1952, according to the National Park Service.<\/p>\n
One of those people was Lehrer\u2019s dad. He immigrated from Germany more than 100 years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen my father came to this country in 1913, that\u2019s the first thing he saw, was this statue,\u201d Lehrer said.<\/p>\n
And after his work was complete in 1986, Lehrer said he took his dad to see the Statue of Liberty. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he was very proud,\u201d Lehrer said.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s anchored New York City for 140 years.<\/p>\n
With the help of at least one immigrant\u2019s child, the Statue of Liberty can stand tall for many years to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wednesday marks 140 years since the dedication of the Statue of Liberty, since becoming one of the most…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[2296,387,25,3801,231,75,84,83,9,24,12,63,308,27,200],"class_list":["post-385986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-app-human-interest","tag-app-public-safety","tag-app-top-stories","tag-eric-feldman","tag-human-interest","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-public-safety","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}