Statue of Liberty destroyed by terrorists

What does the replacement look like?

This is an outgrowth of the alternate SoL thread. Someone suggested that if the Statue was destroyed it would be replaced with a completely new and different statue, however I think the Statue is so iconic and such an important symbol to the people of New York that the Statue would be rebuilt using the original plans.

Then I had another thought, would the Statue be replaced at all?

Is the Statue of Liberty so important that replacing it with a copy wouild be considered in the same light as replacing your recently deceased wife with an identical woman and carrying on like she was the same person?
 

Thande

Donor
Interesting question.

I recall after 9/11 there were some people (mainly families of victims) who wanted the towers to be rebuilt exactly the same as before as a big "fuck you" to al-Qaeda. Then of course there were plans to build a new Freedom Tower incorporating a memorial where the original towers stood. Nowadays I wonder if anything will ever be built there ever again, not out of respect but just out of incompetence.

Back to the OP: I doubt it would be a different statue. They'd either leave the site bare or rebuild it the same. I suspect the latter, and I guess they would probably paint it green from the start to match the oxidised-copper look of the original.
 
or....

if somebody can figure out the circumstances where the french people would pay to gift a second statue of liberty then they are more talented than me!!!! :D
 
They'd probably rebuild it as a butch woman in combat fatigues, and that crown thing, toting an assault rifle in one hand and that torch thing in the other with one foot on an Arab's face :p
 

ninebucks

Banned
if somebody can figure out the circumstances where the french people would pay to gift a second statue of liberty then they are more talented than me!!!! :D

To be fair, they probably would offer to pay for it. There was a lot of goodwill towards America after 9/11, and the French view the Statue of Liberty as much as a symbol of their own national spirit as the Americans do.
 

Penelope

Banned
Interesting question.

I recall after 9/11 there were some people (mainly families of victims) who wanted the towers to be rebuilt exactly the same as before as a big "fuck you" to al-Qaeda.

Actually, I believe that was Penn and Teller. :D:p
 
Well it depends upon a few factors. The WTC had a variety of different proposals going for it and I am sure some would be wild while others might be more tame.

I think things such as size wouldn't be as big a factors. One of the fears of the new WTC was that it would be overly large and endanger many of the occupants. The statue of liberty has few occupants, so size isn't as big a deal and the quantity of cash being raised to build a new one would far overshoot the cost of rebuilding an exact copy.

I am guessing that building an exact copy would be around 100 million? I wouldn't be suprised if twenty times that amount were raised for it's reconstruction.

I picture the island having a large museum housing the remnants of the original statue acting as a pedestal for the new statue. Beyond that I couldn't say. A classic style could show up similiar to the original or a more modern version could be created out of a competition. It needs to be respectable, classy and grand.

Setting it up on it's own power supply could make it shine even when the city is hit by a blackout.
 
The problem with rebuilding the Statue of Liberty was that the craftsmen at the time that were familiar with the repoussé technique used to make the copper panels of the Statue, barring those who worked on its restoration, were a dying breed since this technique is not taught anymore. In order to rebuild the Statue, you'd literally have to teach a whole generation of craftsmen how to do the technique.
 
I think we may get a 'Daughter of Liberty' type thing, made to both resemble the Statue but at the same time be different.
 
I think a really cool statue would be an Abstract Art crazy huge figure in the middle of the harbor.
 

Hendryk

Banned
IIRC blowing up the Statue of Liberty was the ultimate aim of the main character in Paul Auster's Leviathan.
 
Ooh; Deus Ex! :D

Anyway according to Wikipedia the statue has a skin of about 2.4 mm (thats 3/32ths of an inch for all you Yankees out there), but its fairly big: 46m (151ft) tall, with 204.1 metric tonnes (450,000lbs) of metal in its construction. I suppose a sufficiant amount of high explosive or thermite might do the trick; but that would be too hard to hide for long enough to get it all in. That means the most feasable way of melting lady liberty would be a fuel filled 747 (though odds on all that would happen would be the statue getting knocked over, which strikes me as a recoverable situation) or a 'Sum-of-all-fears' style nuke (though the odds of Al'Queda getting their hands on one of those...).

Actually my biggest problem with this scenario is that it doesn't fit the terrorist M.O. (as I see it); they seem to go after targets that will cause impact in terms of people not symbology. For instance the 7/7 bombers and the Madrid bombers went after the cities' transport systems, not their ancient monuments (and believe me, there is a wealth of easily destroyed ancient monument in London). This is probably because destroying symbols seems to make people more angry than a high body count; there was actually serious discussion in the wake of 7/7 about whether or not Afghanistan and Iraq were 'our' wars to fight at all. Odds on if it had been Buckingham Palace or the Royal Family there wouldn't be an Afghanistan, much less an Al'Queda anymore... which would sort of defeat the object of a terrorist cell; to cause as much damage, for as long as possible, in the name of X.

In terms of a rebuilt Statue of Liberty, unless there's some sort of drastic regime change, a larger version of the same seems likely, maybe with one finger strategicaly raised...
 
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