Lady Liberty Carrying a Torch for U.S. on 100th

There she stood on a sunlit afternoon in late April, her golden torch glowing high above our Staten Island Ferry.

It wouldn’t be until the evening of July 3 that President Reagan would officially inaugurate the 100th birthday celebration for the Statue of Liberty.

Producer David Wolper said his $30-million extravaganza will be more spectacular than the ceremonies he staged for the 1984 Olympics.

But already her restoration was complete, and she was queen of the harbor, focusing attention on all that will be new in New York City for 17 million visitors expected between July 3 and the climax of centennial celebrations on Oct. 28, the date when President Grover Cleveland presided over dedication ceremonies in 1886.

Think of all the cliches you’ve ever heard about New York, then try to relate them to such Sunday activities as a fund-raising ride by 20,000 bicyclists and a trek by 25,000 walkers along routes through five boroughs closed to four-wheel traffic.

At 4 in the afternoon, the lower deck of the ferry was brightly alive with the red cycling vests and happy chatter of several hundred cyclists returning from the finish line. Their 36-mile ride ended on Staten Island after beginning at Battery Park on Lower Manhattan.

The purpose of the 10th annual Citibank-American Youth Hostels ride was to promote bicycling in the city, where it is becoming part of life on Sundays. The walkers on this Sunday in New York were participating in the annual Walk-America fund-raising drive for the March of Dimes.

Cheerful, Noisy Throng

As we passed beneath the Statue of Liberty’s torch, the cyclists cheered. One was toting a small, barking dog in a well-padded handlebar basket. A young couple biking on a tandem towed a two-wheel cart on which a boy about 3 years old rode like a prince. His father held him up to see Lady Liberty, whose golden torch seemed to sparkle in the sunlight.

It was a memorable moment along our personal Statue of Liberty pilgrimage trail, which began two weeks earlier in the French Alsace-Lorraine town of Colmar, birthplace of Frederic Bartholdi, the sculptor who created the statue and worked for 20 years to help raise funds for this gift from France to the people of America on our country’s centennial.

We felt that it must have been close to this same spot in New York Harbor that ship’s officers lifted up my wife, Elfriede, at age 12 and her 7-year-old brother to give the two youngest immigrants aboard the steamship Albert Ballin a better view of Lady Liberty, who was welcoming them and their mother to the promise of a new life. As with many immigrant families, their father had arrived a year earlier to find work.

Now a new arm holds a new torch aloft; both have been replaced as part of the $265-million restoration project that will be funded entirely by private contributions.

She’s Ready Now

Landscaping and other refurbishments are to be completed before the public can once again begin visiting the statue on July 5, but on this Sunday afternoon we could see that Lady Liberty was ready. All scaffolding had been removed and her crown repaired, the Bartholdi masterpiece looking as radiantly fresh as it must have looked a century ago, rising 305 feet from the base of the foundation to the tip of torch.

A new museum in the pedestal displays the original arm and torch among its many exhibits. It uses the latest techniques in providing accessibility for the handicapped. Children as well as the blind can touch and feel their way through the Liberty Museum.

The skyline of lower Manhattan beckoned ahead of our ferryboat’s bow, a blending of 19th-Century architectural styles with the twin monoliths of the 107-story World Trade Center skyscrapers and new office and condominium complexes not yet completed.

We stepped off the ferry to walk through the area of lower Manhattan that is becoming a destination within a destination, the city’s newest hotel, restaurant, shopping and luxury condominium complex, wrapping around the historic and financial heart of New York.

Another Greenwich Village?

Make a note of TriBeCa (that’s short for Triangle Below Canal Street). The Statue of Liberty centennial year will make it a discovery for visitors to New York and help to build the kind of mystique long associated with SoHo and Greenwich Village, both just to the north on the island of Manhattan. TriBeCa is a small and easy-to-explore triangle, bounded on the west by the Hudson River and on the east by Broadway.

The old commercial and industrial buildings of TriBeCa were built as early as the 18th Century when entrepreneurs were concerned about architecture as well as utility. Each reflects the interests and personality of the original owner, often in a style called Federal Period. Now they are being renovated as artists’ studios, specialty shops and restaurants, and upper-income condominium homes. Montrachet and the Odeon are two restaurants already drawing a gourmet clientele from uptown Manhattan.

The tip of TriBeCa triangle points down to the World Trade Center. The 23-story Vista International Hotel below the twin 107-story towers of the center is the first hotel to be built in lower Manhattan in 145 years, and has given a great impetus to the renaissance of the entire area.

Vista has joined hands with Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery in the state of Washington to raise funds for the final payments for restoration of the statue. Vista and the winery are each contributing $2.50 to the restoration fund for every dinner sold at the hotel’s two restaurants, the American Harvest and the Greenhouse. They are also donating $1.50 each for every bottle of the Chateau wines sold.

“Savor the Tastes of Liberty” dinners feature a different national cuisine each month. This joint effort is expected to raise more than $40,000 between now and the end of the year.

Walking Tours of Manhattan

Steve Laise, executive director of the Federal Hall Museum a few blocks of the Vista, has been engaged to lead walking tours of historic lower Manhattan for hotel guests. In less than three miles, often in view of the statue, he guided us through nearly four centuries of history, beginning with the legendary sale of the island of Manhattan to Dutch leader Peter Minuet in 1626.

We walked with Laise to the Romanesque facade of the New York Stock Exchange and were reminded that Wall Street was once a wall built by the small Dutch colony as a defense against the larger English colony in Massachusetts.

Federal Hall Museum is assembling for this centennial celebration an exhibition that will include a copy of the Magna Carta and other freedom documents from around the world.

Trinity Church along the walking route of our tour is where Washington worshiped and where Alexander Hamilton was buried after he was killed in his duel with Aaron Burr. Steamboat pioneer Robert Fulton is buried close to Hamilton’s grave. The tour goes on to City Hall Park. It was here the Declaration of Independence was read to Washington and his troops on July 9, 1776. He said farewell to his officers at Fraunces Tavern.

The glittering “crystal palace” of the new Jacob K. Javits Convention Center opened last month and is already a tourist attraction with its restaurants, parks and walkways along the Hudson River.

Museum Centennial Exhibit

The Museum of the City of New York is presenting a Statue of Liberty Centennial Exhibit through Nov. 9. Included is the original copy of “The New Colussus” by Emma Lazarus, with its immortal last lines inscribed at the base of the statue: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. . . .”

Latest estimates show that more than 100 million Americans, 40% of the nation’s population, are descendants of immigrants welcomed by these words and the gleaming torch.

“Beyond the Golden Door” is a companion to this display, tracing the history of settlement houses where immigrants lived in New York. The Jewish Museum tells poignantly of the hopes and dreams of Jewish families who sailed into the harbor.

Theaters from Lincoln Center to Broadway and off-Broadway are adding new options to a centennial visit. TKTS booths at 47th and Broadway, and at 2 World Trade Center, are selling half-price tickets on the day of performance. We’ve just spent a special kind of American heritage evening with “Big River,” the winner of seven Tony awards, which musically relives the story of Huckleberry Finn.

Newest in the recent wave of hotel openings is the Marriott Marquis, off Broadway between 45th and 46th streets. Its city-within-a-city attractions include the world’s largest atrium rimmed by 12 glass-enclosed elevators, a health club and 1,500-seat Broadway theater, and a revolving rooftop restaurant. This hotel is part of a Times Square area renaissance project.

The big hotels and small hideaways throughout New York have put together Statue of Liberty packages. Down closest to the Statue at Vista International, the price of $72 per person per night, double occupancy, includes ferry tickets to visit the statue, walking tours of lower Manhattan, free parking and use of the Executive Fitness Center. Two children can stay free with the parents.

For a complete list of hotel packages and all sightseeing possibilities, contact the New York Convention & Visitors Bureau, 2 Columbus Circle, New York 10019; phone (212) 397-8200.