The Statue of Liberty standing at the southwestern entrance (New Jersey side) of New York Harbor (Hudson River side) is our Nations most recognized symbol of freedom and hope since its dedication in 1886, and a perfect for testing sea level rise acceleration.
The Statue is housed on Liberty Island (shown below) which is a small 14.7-acre island immediately south of Ellis Island which now houses the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration.
Liberty Island has history going back to its Pre-1000 CE Native American inhabitants that called the island one of three “Oyster Islands” in New York Harbor with these islands representing a major food source.
The Dutch took position of the island in 1609 and in 1667 ownership was obtained by a Dutch colonist named Isaac Bedloe.
1673 Bedloe dies and the island is renamed Bedloe’s Island.
1732 Mary Bedloe Smith (Isaac’s widow) sells the island to New York merchants to resolve her bankruptcy issues.
1738 New York City takes possession of the island for inspecting incoming ships for contamination and disease.
1794 after the American Revolution the Federal Government appropriates funding to construct fortifications on Bedloe’s Island.
1808 to 1811 the U. S. Army administers the building of a military fort on the island. The facility is called Fort Wood with an 11-point star fortress that aides the protection of New York Harbor. See Figure 2.2 below.
1834 New York and New Jersey establish that all of Liberty Islands lands (then Bedloe’s Island) above the low-level water mark are designated as lying within New York and all submerged riparian rights to water and submerged lands surrounding the island are designated as being within New Jersey.
1842 to 1844 A building program was undertaken in the 1840s to significantly improve the deteriorating condition of Fort Wood which included the construction of a new granite seawall that still surrounds the southern end of Liberty Island today that was built in 1842-44 that replaced the prior seawall which was in place between 1811 -1842. Aside from protecting the island’s shoreline the new seawall also retained fill that supported an artificial slope leading up to an earthen parapet surmounted by an outer battery at that time as shown in the diagram of the work below. (Referenced link Pages 2-5 & 2-6 from Chapter 2B History of Liberty Island)
1874 to 1907 The existing portion of the eastern seawall was extended to the northern tip of the island between 1874 and 1879. In 1887 this seawall was further extended around the northern tip and partway down the western side sufficient to protect the newly created Lighthouse Board Reservation. The western seawall perimeter was fully completed between 1901 and 1907 by the U.S. Army, which led to additional filling to provide a basis for a new barracks building.
In summary, the existing seawall at Liberty Island (then called Bedloe’s Island) was established by 1844 for the southern, south eastern and south western end of the island that now protect the Statue of Liberty base, pedestal and statue, then extended along the eastern side of the island by 1879, then further extended along the northern tip and part of the western side of the island by 1887 and finally completed for the remaining western side of the island between 1901 and 1907.
1877 Bedloe’s Island is designated as the site for the Statue of Liberty. The U.S. begins fundraising for the construction of the pedestal. The Army administers the islands military post until 1937.
1881 Architect Richard Morris Hunt completes the initial designs of the pedestal which maintains the 11-point star outline of Fort Wood with significantly increased height and strength.
1884 Hunt finalizes the pedestal plan which requires up to 20-foot-thick concrete walls faced with granite block.
1886 The Statue’s pedestal is complete. The Statue of Liberty is reassembled on the pedestal and dedicated on October 28th, 1886.
1956 Bedloe’s Island is renamed Liberty Island by a joint resolution of Congress and signed into law by President Eisenhower.
2003 to 2004 The National Park Service (NPS) signs a contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to repair “340 linear feet of the 3,119 foot Granite-faced vertical concrete Liberty Island seawall that was originally constructed in the early 19th century and surrounds most of the island. The repairs took place at locations where granite stones had fallen out of the seawall.”
“Construction began in April 2004 and ended in June 2004. “We repaired the seawall on the north and south side of the Liberty Island NPS Shuttle Dock located in the Southeast section of the island,” said Ciorra. “We did this by first hydro blasting the exposed concrete on the seawall, in areas where seawall blocks have dislodged, in order to remove algae, moss and dirt, and then manually removed old grout and loose disintegrated concrete. We also replaced the disintegrated concrete with Sulphate-Resistant Air Entrained Concrete that is resistant to the marine environment. We took the 36 existing large granite blocks that dislodged, cleaned them, and grouted and reset them back into the wall with mortar.”
“In addition, the entire 340 linear feet of seawall was cleaned and repainted beyond where the actual stones were dislodged and reset,” said Brian Jackson, Project Engineer, USACE, New York District. “The stones that were dislodged and reset were actually only a small portion of the entire length of the wall.”
A photo of the seawall repair site is shown below. The Shuttle Dock is visible in the far-right hand side of the photo.
The photo below shows the ferry dock (far left side with a ferry positioned at this dock) and the Shuttle Dock (right side) used at Liberty Island. The Shuttle Dock is used for National Park Service employees, loading and offloading supplies and materials and other equipment needed to support National Park operations. Both these docks were destroyed by Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and then rebuilt. The 11-point star pedestal base remnant shape originally from Fort Wood that supports the Statue of Liberty is quite visible.