On Valentine’s Day 2019, the team at News10 ABC aired a Special Report about a very special Lady in distress, the City of Schenectady’s beloved replica of the Statue of Liberty. Titled “Local Treasure Locked Away“, the 3-Minute Report by Louis Finley focuses on the hope of many Schenectady residents that the Lady Liberty replica be returned to her home at Liberty Park. Although the City had promised to return the Statue, which was removed for its protection during the reconstruction of her park at Gateway Plaza, Lady Liberty is still looked in a City warehouse 8 months after the completion of the Plaza.

• Share this posting with this shorter URL: https://tinyurl.com/LadyCh10
• Reporter Louis Finley interviewed Goosehill resident Matthew Sosnowski, Schenectady County Historical Society education director Michael Diana, and Stockade resident David Giacalone (the proprietor of this website) for the Special Report, and included them in the presentation. .

The Albany ABC News Team was able to do what citizen proponents of Lady Liberty’s return home could not: Capture Her forlorn image “locked away” in the City’s Foster Avenue Warehouse, where she was taken in August 2017 for protection while the ground under her was literally being moved and removed and the Park reconfigured.

Unfortunately, what News Ten could not do is pry a commitment from Mayor Gary M. McCarthy or Mary Moore Wallinger, the primary designer of Gateway Plaza, that the Gateway Plaza Implementation Plan would be followed and Lady Liberty returned to her home of 67 years. The Implementation Plan was adopted in June 2013 by the City Council and Mayor, after being formulated and presented to the Public and Council by Ms. Wallinger. It clearly called for only a temporary absence of the Statue from the Park/Plaza during construction. The first public mention that the Statue might not be returned to Liberty Park came in a newspaper article in December 2017, with no explanation given for ignoring a fully approved Plan. Instead, almost eleven months after the issue was first raised at a City Council meeting, Mayor McCarthy told News10 that a decision would soon be forthcoming. [follow-up: As of May 16, 2019, neither Mary Wallinger nor the Mayor is telling the public what will become of Lady Liberty.  Wallinger told the Times Union this week that:

“I know it’s in storage. I know it’s going to cost a lot of money to make the repairs that need to be made, but I also know it is not my decision,” she added.

McCarthy did not return a call Tuesday seeking comment.

See “Schenectady’s Gateway design celebrates diversity but missing Lady Liberty” (by Paul Nelson, May 15, 2019); and  “Gateway Plaza installation in Schenectady taking shape: Construction likely to begin this week” (Daily Gazette, by Pete DeMola, May 16, 2019)

Follow-up (Aug. 18, 2019): Mayor McCarthy, with no announcement, placed Lady Liberty in exile, at the unsightly location of Erie Boulevard and Union Street. See our posting, “McCarthy disses Lady Liberty again“.

•  Dedication Day. The procrastination of our current Mayor and his carefree attitude toward Lady Liberty, her proponents, and the Planning and legislative process, is in stark contrast to the importance of the Statue to the City at the time of its Dedication. The Special Report shows the front page of the Schenectady Gazette on November 9, 1950, and the prominence given the story. The article states that 2500 scouts and scouters marched in a parade to the Park, with a crowd of 3,500 persons overflowing the small park for the dedication ceremony. Then Mayor Owen M. Begley called it a “beautiful, beautiful gift,” commenting that the replica here will be a great emblem in Schenectady of our great heritage of liberty

Another issue that News10 apparently could not pin down was the nature of the purported damage to the Statue that is allegedly keeping it from being re-installed. One aspect of the damage claim is why the million-dollar-plus budget for Gateway Plaza does/did not include funds for any needed rehabilitation of the Statue and its base before its return.

News10 anchors Lydia Kulbida and John Gray mentioned their intent to followup on this story. We hope that will include investigating the City’s claim that the name of Liberty Park has already been officially changed to Gateway Plaza by City Council and the Mayor. See our posting “the name is Liberty Park” for rebuttal on that point. (The renaming controversy is the context of my remarks in the Special Report comparing the significance to the public of the names Liberty and Gateway.)

• For a discussion of the many issues raised by the failure to return the Lady to her Home, see our posting “Lady Liberty is Timeless,” which was written in reaction to the claim by Ms. Wallinger that the Statue did not fit into her contemporary vision of the Plaza. That posting and others at this site contain relevant images and links to documents, Click on the collage to the right of this paragraph for a summary of the relationship of the Replica Statue to the Implementation Plan, including a photo of Lady Liberty in the Park prior to her removal, and details from a rendering and plat that show the replica Statue returned as part of the Implementation Plan. Also, click here for a collage showing why people were so fond of the beautiful statue and its original home.

Thank you, News 10 ABC, for spreading the word about our exiled Lady Liberty and showing the passion of her supporters for her return.

 . . [L] photo of Liberty replica statue dedication event (Schenectady Gazette, Nov. 9, 1950, front-page) . .