Lady Liberty's arm and torch

One for the demonstrators in some 1,000 cities in some 80 countries who are #occupying:

The arm and torch of the Statue of Liberty in Madison Square Park, New York. These portions of the Statue were exhibited to raise funds for the completion of the statue and its pedestal. The arm and torch remained in the park from 1876 until 1882. Members of the public could pay fifty cents to climb to the balcony of the torch.

The Arm of Liberty, 1876-1882 [howtobearetronaut.com]

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: History • liberty • nyc • photo

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jamesggilmore

“You maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!”

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Dan Mooney

Great pictures, but I think this particular one is from the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, before the arm and torch were moved to Madison Square Park (as the other pictures from the link would seem to show).
- http://twitter.com/dpwolf David Wolf
  
  You’re right. There’s no lake/river in Madison Square Park.
InsertFingerHere

There must have been money in the City around that time, maybe there were competing statue drives at various locations in the park? Wouldn’t that be something, eh? A cache of never fully-realized bits and pieces of forgotten great efforts, laying in some old subway tunnel.

I gotta go watch Mimic.
http://twitter.com/travyeso travis

If this statue was built today, I wonder what would be in place of the torch, a beer? A corndog? Perhaps an AK47…
- awjt
  
  A fistful of dollars.
Levi Asher

Dan Mooney must be right, because it’s very hard to believe that this photo shows Madison Square Park. The park is only a couple of blocks long, and it never contained a pond or a lake. The other two photos at the Retronaut site may show Madison Square Park, but this one doesn’t.
unklstuart

Added to my list of things to see when I build that time machine.
RJ

The park itself looks very nice.
Wisconsin Platt

Almost $11 today to climb up to the balcony.
bkad

Almost $11 today to climb up to the balcony.

Which I guess isn’t that bad, considering the tolls/ train fare/ bus fare just to get into and out of the city. Seriously, take it from someone who didn’t grow up near a city, and has expectations of free parking, $60K starter homes, and inexpensive food: cities are insanely expensive. I don’t know why people choose to live in them. Except that cities have jobs. Even for artists. Which small town America does not. I guess this is why people have been moving from country to city ever since the industrial revolution. It’s why I did (though, to be fair, I don’t live in the city itself, but in NJ). Sigh.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  I don’t know why people choose to live in them. Except that cities have
  jobs. Even for artists. Which small town America does not.
  
  They also have people who don’t stop and stare at you if you don’t look like the Cleavers.
  - bkad
    
    They also have people who don’t stop and stare at you if you don’t look like the Cleavers.
    
    That too (though I don’t know what the Cleavers are). :-) Even though I’m boring enough not to have to think about that every day, I’m definitely reminded, when I visit home, that my new-found religious and social ideas wouldn’t fit there long term.
Bruce Horn

A photo of this arm in New York was used as an illustration in “Time and Again”, one of my favorite time travel books about an illustrator who goes back to New York in 1882. The technical quality of that photo was not as good as this one but the setting definitely looked different from this. A Google search on “statue of liberty arm madison square garden” brings up several images of it in that location including a stereo view.
- Mike Jackson
  
  I came to make that reference too. A wonderful book by Jack Finney, actually it had a sequel “From Time to Time” and I’ve always wanted to see them made into movies, especially now that the ‘present day’ parts would have to be set in the 1970s when they were written to keep chunks of the story plausible for some of the characters.
  
  The scene that takes place in the arm & torch in the first book is very gripping and fantastic. With advances in computer animation it would finally be possible for both the NYC of the 1970s as well as the 1880 – 1912 to be recreated on screen as the time-traveling Simon Morley wanders through and lived in both.
Gutierrez

If you have a Nintendo 3DS you can download a 3D image of the arm and torch from this image blog.

http://3dsstereo.wordpress.com/2011/05/09/can-i-get-a-hand-here/
Brood-X

If Lady Liberty were constructed today they would launch an Internet fund raising campaign to finance it. My, how far we have come. I’ll bet one of the original admission tickets could fetch up to 50 cents today.
Frank Diekman

In Gibson’s Spook Country wasn’t one of the locative art pieces Lady Liberty’s torch arm? Wonder if that was inspired by this photo?
Cowicide

One for the demonstrators in some 1,000 cities in some 80 countries who are #occupying

Thank you, Cory.
http://imcravingpresidency.tumblr.com/ SedanChair

Monuments almost always used to be built on subscription. Seems almost entirely dead as a fundraising model now.
BarBarSeven

What a bunch of proto-hippies! They want that statue built, they should work harder. GET A JOB!!!
Phil Fot

Great picture….

http://www.lakecityquietpills.com/photo/multihost/images/37912468635098597818.jpg
CSBD

The only bad thing about “fund raising” for public monuments etc. is that it encourages the crazy wing of the Libertarian party to extrapolate a few isolated successes into arguments that we can have a wonderful nation with NO taxes… everyone will just freely give money to support everything that is needed and since there are no taxes involved, greed will magically go away.

When they start mono-logging about it, they don’t realize how similar they sound to someone who is telling you about the works of Jesus.
Ipo

This photo shows the Statue of Liberty’s First Viewing
The arm and torch of the Statue of Liberty was exhibed at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia’s Fairmont Park during the summer of 1876.
106milesite

You’re correct. That particular shot was from the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Exposition and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Collossal_hand_and_torch._Bartholdi%27s_statue_of_%22Liberty.%22,_from_Robert_N._Dennis_collection_of_stereoscopic_views.jpg
http://twitter.com/glamaFez glamaFez

She’s rolling in her grave.