Know Your Government

“I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

"Boston ; N.Y. : Forbes Co., c1883 (i.e., c1884)"

The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus (1883)

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

(BETA/New York) Interior Secretary Ken Salazar went to the top of the crown with fellow democrats New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, New Jersey Rep. Albio Siries and New York Rep. Anthony Weiner.

He said a study is underway on whether to open the crown to the public and that the review should be complete in April.

Opening the crown “is very important to me,” said Salazar, but he added that any such plan must include the safety of the public.

Menendez suggested there may be some sort of lottery to allow limited numbers of tourists access to the crown on a daily basis.

After Sept. 11, access to the crown was closed as a security measure, along with the rest of the Statue and Liberty Island.

When the island and base of the statue were reopened several years later, the crown remained closed. U.S. Park officials said the narrow spiral stairway first built for worker access was a danger for anyone suffering an injury or other medical event, such as a heart attack.

In addition, a 1999 internal study found that if there were a fire in the pedestal, the interior of the statue would act like a chimney, with smoke suffocating anyone on the stairs.

(Excelsior, the New York state motto, is Latin for “ever upward.”)