Todd Heisler/The New York Times A replica of the Statue of Liberty stands in the parking lot of the Brooklyn Museum. As a resultt of the shut down of the federal government, the real Statue of Liberty is closed, but the replica can be visited unimpeded. A New York vacation is not a New York vacation without a visit to the Statue of Liberty, and so, on Thursday afternoon, the tourist from Kuwait strolled up to Lady Liberty’s plinth and turned toward the camera, smiling broadly. His wife took a photo with her iPhone, tilting it up to make sure she captured the entire statue, crown to toe.
It was not, admittedly, very difficult: this Statue of Liberty rose only 47 feet high.
As the government shutdown stretched into its third day, shuttering federal Web sites, Twitter feeds and national monuments, scores of tourists were turned away from the 305 feet, 1 inch Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. But for the truly enterprising, there was always Lady Liberty’s younger, smaller twin in the sculpture garden of the Brooklyn Museum, which is open for business, not to mention free, stairless, lineless and subway-adjacent.
But, little Liberty was nearly as desolate as the original on Thursday. Apart from a few security guards on their cigarette breaks and a calico cat poking its head out of the bushes, the tourists from Kuwait were the statue’s only visitors.
Vanessa Blandford, 32, said she had tried and failed to visit Liberty Island during each of her four previous trips to New York. The last time, it had been closed for renovations after Hurricane Sandy.
“It’s just a New York landmark,†she said. “But every time I’ve tried to see the real thing, it’s been shut down or I’ve taken the wrong ferry.†Her visit to the replica was pure chance, she said: she and her husband, Ahmed Mugharbil, 33, had been in search of a bar, not a sibling to the international icon of freedom.
While the real Statue of Liberty presides over an expansive harbor, dwarfing the boats in its shadow, the Brooklyn Statue of Liberty overlooks a large parking lot, at the edge of which several museum staff members can usually be found smoking and looking at their smartphones. Visitors do not encounter the statue unless they pass the museum’s south side or come out to admire the sculpture garden.
Though it never welcomed immigrants to New York, it was commissioned by an immigrant: the statue was cast out of iron and steel in either Ohio or Pennsylvania in the late 1800s for a Russian auctioneer named William H. Flattau, who wanted it to stand atop his eight-story Liberty Warehouse on the Upper West Side. When it was installed in 1902, it was one of the highest points in the neighborhood, according to the museum. Until 1912, visitors could climb a spiral staircase inside and peek out at Columbus Circle through the statue’s crown (not quite the view visitors to the real statue have of the harbor, but quite possibly more impressive than the view of the back of the Brooklyn Museum).
The statue stood there for a century before a developer, wanting to turn the warehouse into a co-op building, donated it to the museum in 2002.
Though it is smaller than the Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi original, the Brooklyn Statue of Liberty has a thicker midsection, slightly more stolid curves, and is more squat. That’s partly the result of a less sophisticated casting process and partly because it was originally designed to be seen from below, said the museum’s chief curator, Kevin Stayton.
“She’s getting a little older,†said Ron Martino, one of the museum’s security guards. “She put on a couple pounds.â€
Majestic, it is not. But, for all its flaws, “the symbolism is pretty universal,†Mr. Mugharbil said.
As many as two dozen tourists come by most days to take photos with the statue, guards said, and the museum sent out a press release this week reminding the world that although the real statue was closed, Brooklyn’s was on view. But the shutdown coincides with a quiet week for the museum, and there were few visitors.
Tourists occasionally ask security guards if it is the real one, Mr. Martino said. “I guess you don’t know how big those pictures on the postcards really are, you know?â€
Then again, most of the museum staff members near the statue on Thursday said they had rarely been to see the real Statue of Liberty, if ever.
“It just never dawned on me,†said a custodian, Tony Douglas, 45, as he swept up fallen leaves around the sculpture garden.
Asked if he had felt it unnecessary to go because he could simply gaze upon the Brooklyn replica, Mr. Douglas laughed.
“Well,†he said, “I wouldn’t say so.â€
