1067-1070, 1541, 2735, 3162 UNITED STATES (New York) - Statue of Liberty (UNESCO WHS)

1067 - Liberty Island and the Statue of Liberty

Posted on 28.04.2014, 25.04.2015, 04.08.2016, 08.10.2017
The Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World) is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in the middle of New York Harbor, in Manhattan. The statue, designed by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi built by Gustave Eiffel and dedicated on October 28, 1886, was a gift to the United States from the people of France. The statue is of a robed female figure representing Libertas, the Roman goddess, who bears a torch and a tabula ansata (a tablet evoking the law) upon which is inscribed the date of the American Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776. A broken chain lies at her feet.

1068 - The Statue of Liberty with Manhattan in the background (1)

The statue is an icon of freedom and of the United States: a welcoming signal to immigrants arriving from abroad. Bartholdi was inspired by French law professor and politician Édouard René de Laboulaye, who is said to have commented in 1865 that any monument raised to American independence would properly be a joint project of the French and American peoples. He may have been minded to honor the Union victory in the American Civil War and the end of slavery.

1069 - Aerial view of the Statue of Liberty

 

This masterpiece of the human spirit, which brings together art and engineering in a new and powerful way, is composed of thinly pounded copper sheets over a steel framework, designed by the French engineer Gustave Eiffel. Its symbolic value lies in two basic factors. Presented by France with the intention of affirming the historical alliance between the two nations, it was financed by international subscription in recognition of the establishment of the principles of freedom and democracy.

3162 - The Statue of Liberty with Manhattan in the background (2)
Postcard made exclusively for Statue of Liberty Museum

The Statue also soon became and has endured as a symbol of the migration of people from many countries into the United States in the late 19th and the early 20th centuries. The torch-bearing arm was displayed at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, in 1876, and in New York's Madison Square Park from 1876 to 1882. Fundraising proved difficult, especially for the Americans, and by 1885 work on the pedestal was threatened due to lack of funds.

1070 - New York Harbor at dusk

 Publisher Joseph Pulitzer of the New York World started a drive for donations to complete the project that attracted more than 120,000 contributors. The statue was constructed in France, shipped overseas in crates, and assembled on the completed pedestal on what was then called Bedloe's Island. In 1956, Bedloe's Island was renamed Liberty Island, and nearby Ellis Island was made part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument by proclamation of President Lyndon Johnson in 1965.

1541 - Statue of Liberty

In 1972, the American Museum of Immigration, in the statue's base, was opened in a ceremony led by President Richard Nixon. The museum's backers never provided it with an endowment to secure its future and it closed in 1991 after the opening of an immigration museum on Ellis Island. In 1984, the statue was closed to the public for the duration of the renovation. The torch, found to have been leaking water since the 1916 alterations, was replaced with an exact replica of Bartholdi's unaltered torch. It reflects the sun's rays in daytime and lighted by floodlights at night.

2735 The 130th Anniversary of
the Statue of Liberty

The entire puddled iron armature designed by Gustave Eiffel was replaced. Low-carbon corrosion-resistant stainless steel bars that now hold the staples next to the skin are made of Ferralium, an alloy that bends slightly and returns to its original shape as the statue moves. In 1984, the Statue of Liberty was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, because is a "masterpiece of the human spirit" that "endures as a highly potent symbol - inspiring contemplation, debate and protest - of ideals such as liberty, peace, human rights, abolition of slavery, democracy and opportunity."

0820 VIETNAM (Southeast) - Saigon Central Post Office

Former capital of the French colony of Cochinchina and later of the independent republic of South Vietnam, Saigon is officially called Ho Chi Minh City (after Hồ Chí Minh, the late North Vietnamese leader) for nearly 30 years, ie since 1976, but the old name is more often used than the new one not only in everyday speech, but also by the authorities. A good example is that on the postmark write Saigon, no Ho Chi Minh. Moreover, the inhabitants of the city weren't named ever otherwise than Saigonese. It seems that in this case, either the mercantilism, or the desire to preserve the tradition defeated the ideology.

0234, 0458 FRANCE (Île-de-France) - Eiffel Tower - part of Paris, Banks of the Seine (UNESCO WHS)

0234 Eiffel Tower (1)

The Eiffel Tower (La Tour Eiffel) was built in 1889 as the entrance arch to the 1889 World's Fair, on the  Champ de Mars in Paris, and it has become both a global cultural icon of France and one of the most recognizable structures in the world. It's named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower, which has 320m and was the tallest man-made structure in the world for 41 years. Is know very well all these things. Is less known that it would have to recover the cost of construction in 20 years, and after this it had to be dismantled. But the cost was recovered in a year, and the tower wasn't removed even today.

0458 Eiffel Tower (2)

If it wasn't dismantled, instead was sold in 1925 by Victor Lustig, a con artist born in Hostinné, today a town in Czech Republic. How did this? Very simple. Lustig invited six scrap metal dealers to a meeting at the one of the most prestigious hotels of the Paris, to discuss a possible business deal. There, Lustig introduced himself as the deputy director-general of the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs, and told the group that the upkeep on the Eiffel Tower wanted to sell it for scrap. Finally he collected the money (plus a large bribe) from one dealer, Andre Poisson, who wanted to enter in the inner circles of the Parisian business community. After that, the con took a train for Vienna with a suitcase full of cash. A month later, Lustig returned to Paris and tried to sell the Tower once more, but this time hasn't succeeded.