CELEBRATION OF LIBERTY : Reporter’s Notebook : Tall Ships and Tall Lady Generate Fever

Liberty Fever struck hard here Thursday, turning normally jaded citizens into out-and-out fans of the lady on Liberty Island and active participants in her 100th birthday celebration.

Always a popular tourist attraction, South Street Seaport and adjacent Pier 17 were jammed with New Yorkers who cheered as each graceful Tall Ship sailed by--and as the occasional kayak joined the impending aquatic gridlock.

Nearby, Urban Parks Ranger Terrence McShea was manning the New York Parks Department’s Battery Park information center. The most commonly asked question, McShea reported with a smile, is “ ‘How do you get to the Statue of Liberty?’ ” Alas, McShea must inform questioners that tourist boats will not resume trips to Liberty Island until Saturday. “I tell ‘em to take the Staten Island ferry,” McShea said. “It’s a cheap way to see the harbor.”

Married just a week ago in Newport Beach, Annabelle and Don Townson must have heard McShea’s advice, for almost the first thing they did upon arriving in Manhattan was to take “an unbelievable” 25-cent round-trip ride on the Staten Island Ferry. Carrying a “Just Married” balloon, the California honeymooners said they had come to Liberty Weekend because “this is our world’s event.” As for the threat of overpowering crowds, Annabelle Townson said she was undeterred. “This is just like the Olympics in Los Angeles,” she said. “People were afraid to go out, but we’ve learned these events are worth it. There’s nothing like being right there.”

An even cheaper way to see the harbor was to ride the Coast Guard’s ferry to Governors Island. For members of the media, Liberty Island staff people and thousands of VIP visitors, the five-minute ride was free. One crew of ABC technicians was particularly impressed with the boat-filled harbor. Said one cameraman: “It looks like Marina del Rey.”

Cosmetically, at least, similarities to the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics abounded at Liberty Weekend. A cavernous press depot was adorned with banners reminiscent of those that flew around Southern California. Credential badges even resembled the LAOOC passes. And just as Olympics staffers wore uniforms in “festive federal” colors, some 250 Liberty Weekend “hostesses” wore jaunty nautical outfits donated by Avon Fashions and quickly dubbed “the Liberty Look.” One volunteer hostess, 19-year-old Leslie Cason of Cincinnati, said she had applied for the post because “I thought it would be an honor. It is an historical event that will provide a pride and a memory that I will cherish a lifetime.”

Among the nation’s rose-growing community, there was high anxiety right up until the final moment of Thursday night’s torchlighting. For days beforehand, flower specialists had practiced shooting rose petals out of a cannon, one of the many dramatic touches scheduled to coincide with the torchlighting. “What they were worried about,” Heather Kelly, marketing director of the national trade association Roses Inc. said, “was putting them in the cannon so they didn’t all compress into one and come out as a big glob.”

Close to 100,000 stems of mixed-hued roses adorned the sites of the Liberty Weekend festivities, with more than half of the blooms hailing (via jet plane) from California. A special white rose, Lady Liberty, was bred for the occasion by the Joseph H. Hill Corp. of Richmond, Ind., and placed near the President’s box on Thursday and Friday.

His enthusiasm unflagging, Liberty Weekend producer David L. Wolper found himself delayed momentarily when his borrowed corporate helicopter was temporarily grounded. Never one to waste a second, Wolper suddenly grabbed a handful of Liberty Weekend lapel pins from his bodyguard Sal Centanni and began handing them out to maintenance men standing in the vicinity.

In keeping with the nation’s cultural diversity, the Statue of Liberty had (in addition to concerts of jazz, classical music, rock and pop tunes crooned by big-name performers) her very own country-and-western serenade. Composed by Cindy Walker of Mexia, Tex., “The Girl Who Carries the Torch for Me” was sung by 17-year-old Robbie Smith, a recent transplant from Mexia to Los Angeles.

Tired of “all the rip-offs and commercialization” surrounding Liberty Weekend, the International Dull Folks Unlimited chose Thursday to stage a “less hectic” alternative to the madness on Manhattan Island. Dull Folks spokesman James Stewart (in real life a pricing analyst for Eastman Kodak in Rochester, N.Y.) said the Liberty picnic in Brooklyn was a “relaxed, family-type affair” with croquet, generic beer and “very soft ball.”

On the eve of the centennial celebration, hundreds of red roses in clear vases arrived at Liberty Weekend headquarters, the gift of Baseball Commissioner and former Los Angeles Olympics Organizing Committee chief Peter V. Ueberroth. Many of those toiling in Liberty Weekend’s dingy mid-town quarters had also worked under Ueberroth at the LAOOC. “Hope you all have a great weekend--Peter,” read the card to the Liberty Weekend staffers.