WHERE IN AMERICA ARE YOU?
by Randy Karr

You are about to step ashore on the same island where Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi stepped ashore on July 4, 1876. Bartholdi, a successful French sculptor, picked this island as the perfect spot for a monumental statue. His goal had been to present a statue dedicated to "Liberty Enlightening the World" (the official name for the Statue of Liberty) to the United States on July 4, 1876, in honor of America's centennial. Bartholdi commissioned Gustave Eiffel, who later built the Eiffel Tower, to design the statue's skeleton. Built in France, the Statue was dismantled, packed inside 214 wooden crates, and shipped to NYC. It arrived at this island on June 15, 1885, and reassembled. At the time the Statue of Liberty was dedicated, it was the tallest structure in New York, reaching to a total height of 305 feet. Its completion was celebrated with a parade where hundreds of office workers dumped "ticker" tape out the windows, thus, giving birth to the now famous New York ticker-tape parade. Inscribed on a bronze tablet, located on the pedestal's interior wall, is a poem entitled The New Colossus. The poem's best known verse proclaims, "With silent lips, Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." In 1956, this island's name was officially changed. Where in America are you, anyway? Name this island, giving first its original name and second its present-day name.

Click on the photo to reveal the answer.

Copyright © 2005 Randy Karr