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| Statue of Liberty, Jersey City, NJ, USA (New York, New York)
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The Statue of Liberty
At just over 305-feet tall, this statue welcomed countless immigrants to the United States following its dedication in 1886. It now stands as a symbol of liberty and escape from aggression. The statue itself was given to the United States from the country of France as gift for the friendship forged between the two countries during the American Revolution. While the Americans were responsible for building the base, the French built the statue in their own country and shipped it to the States in 350 individual pieces that would later be pieced back together. President Glover Cleveland unveiled the statue on October 28, 1886.
Captain Kidd's Treasure and Ghostly Encounter
The Statue of Liberty sits on what is today known as Liberty Island. Before the arrival of the Statue, it was known as Bedloe Island and was the site of a military fortification known as Fort Wood. The 11-pointed star-shaped fort was originally used to protect New York from potential foreign invaders, but its walls would later be used as the base and support of the Statue of Liberty.
Captain Kidd was a Scottish sailor who would later be tried and executed, perhaps unjustly, for piracy. Having spent some time in New York City in life, after his death rumors began to circulate throughout the city that Kidd had buried some of his stolen treasure on Bedloe Island. The story goes that a couple soldiers stationed at Fort Wood became aware of the rumors and turned to a local psychic for help in tracking down the booty. The psychic drew them a map and they set out on their way, armed with shovels and dowsing rods.
When they reached the spot on the map and the dowsing rods dipped towards the ground, they immediately set to work in digging up the treasure. Much to their delight, they struck something hard and quickly went to work on uncovering their discovery. They reportedly did uncover a treasure chest, but also a skeleton as well. Suddenly a bright light flashed and either a demonic spirit or a very annoyed ghost sent them scurrying. They stumbled across guards who were coming to check on the commotion and quickly related the story. When they led the guards back to the hole they had dug, they found both the skeleton and the treasure chest were gone.
The story persists to this day that there is some hidden pirate treasure buried under a large, flat rock on the north side of the island but no further evidence of treasure or ghosts has been reported since. In 1963, the human remains of an individual were discovered during the restoration of Fort Wood, but many people believe they were only the remains of a Native American that used to reside in the area.
Deaths on the Statue of Liberty
Though the Statue is supposed to represent freedom and liberty, there have been at least a few deaths at the Statue itself. The first took place on May 13, 1929 when a man crawled through one of the windows of the crown. Witnesses reported that he appeared to attempt to turn back, but slipped off the structure and fell to his death. More recently, on May 31, 1997, a 30-year-old man became despondent when he was informed that the stairs leading to the crown were closed for the day. When guards moved toward him, he ran out the exit and jumped from the top of the statue's pedestal and fell 80 feet to his death.
In Popular Media
The Statue of Liberty has popped up a few times in genre films. In fact, the Statue became something of a character in the 1989 sequel, Ghostbusters II. Towards the end of the film, the characters use "mood-slime" to bring the Statue to life and walk it into the heart of New York City in an attempt to unite the citizens of the city and defeat the villain.
More recently, a monster decapitates the Statue of Liberty in the kaiju 2008 film Cloverfield. In the film, the head is first shown being thrown into lower Manhattan and later, news footage shows the Statue now headless. The footage of the head crashing into lower Manhattan was featured on the first teaser for the film and the image of the headless Statue was used on the poster to promote the film. It has similarly been dispatched in the films Deep Impact, Independence Day, and Godzilla: Final Wars.
Liberty Island played a large role in John Carpenter's 1981 film, Escape from New York. In the film, the island is transformed into a police headquarters to oversee Manhattan Island, which has been closed off and converted into a maximum-security prison. Though the Statue is intact in the film itself, the posters promoting the film utilized the image of its severed head lying amongst the ruins of the city.
Probably the most famous use of the Statue of Liberty in film came in the climax of the 1968 Rod Serling-penned film, Planet of the Apes. In that film, the character played by Charlton Heston escapes his ape captors and stumbles across the damaged, half-buried Statue of the Liberty in the sand. It is then that he realizes that the dreaded Planet of the Apes has actually been Earth all along, leading to the famous lines, "We finally really did it. You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!" |
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| Related Sites |
Cloverfield Movie Site
Official web site for the film Cloverfield (2008). |
IMDB: Cloverfield
The Internet Movie Database entry for the film Cloverfield (2008). |
NY Ghostbusters Tour
This online resource provides locations used in the filming of both Ghostbusters films. |
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| See Also on TheCabinet.com |
| There are no other pages on this site associated with this location. |
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| Available from Amazon.com |
Spooky New York: Tales of Hauntings, Strange Happenings, and Other Local Lore (Spooky) |
Discovery Travel Adventure Haunted Holidays (Discovery Travel Adventures) |
Ghostbusters 2 (Widescreen Edition) |
Cloverfield |
Escape from New York (Special Edition) |
Godzilla - Final Wars |
Independence Day (Two-Disc Collector's Edition) |
Deep Impact (Special Collector's Edition) |
Planet of the Apes (Widescreen 35th Anniversary Edition) |
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