The French Kiss

Lady Liberty – How’s She Doing?

‘The French Kiss’

compiled from multiple sources

There are at least 15 copies of the Statue of Liberty located around France

Three replicas of the Statue of Liberty are found in Paris, France. One stands in the Jardin du Luxembourg: this is a bronze model that Bartholdi used in designing the New York statue. Bartholdi offered it to the Luxembourg museum in 1900 and it was placed in the park in 1906. The date written on this statue’s tablet (where the New York statue has “JULY IV MDCCLXXVI”) is “15 de novembre 1889″ (November 15, 1889), the date at which the larger Parisian replica was inaugurated.

This second Statue of Liberty in Paris is near the Grenelle Bridge on the Île des Cygnes, an island in the river Seine in Paris, France. It was dedicated on November 15, 1889, as a gift from the United States. The statue looks towards the Atlantic Ocean and hence towards its “larger sister” in New York Harbor, which had been erected three years earlier. It bears the same coordinates as her sister at 48°51′0″N 2°16′47″E / 48.85°N 2.27972°E / 48.85; 2.27972. The statue stands 37 feet 9 inches high. Its tablet bears two dates: “IV JUILLET 1776″ (July 4, 1776 marking the United States Declaration of Independence, and “XIV JUILLET 1789″ (July 14, 1789: the storming of the Bastille. This statue is shown in the movie National Treasure: Book of Secrets as one of the historic locations.

A third copy, also produced by Bartholdi is located in the Musée des Arts et Métiers.

A life-size copy of the torch, ‘Flame of Liberty,’ can be seen above the entrance to the Pont de l’Alma tunnel near the Champs Elysees in Paris. It was given to the city as a return gift in honor of the Centennial Celebration of the statue’s dedication. Since it is above the Pont de l’Alma car tunnel in which Princess Diana died, the torch became an unofficial memorial to the Princess.

Another replica is the Bordeaux Statue of Liberty. This 2.5 m (8 ft) statue is in the city of Bordeaux in Southwest France. The first Bordeaux statue was seized and melted down by the Nazis in World War II. The statue was replaced in 2000 and a plaque was added to commemorate the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks. On the night of March 25, 2003, unknown vandals poured red paint and gasoline on the replica and set it on fire. The vandals also cracked the pedestal of the plaque.

There is a replica in the northwest of France, in the small town of Barentin near Rouen. It was made for a French movie, Le Cerveau (“the brain”), directed by Gérard Oury and featuring actors Jean-Paul Belmondo and Bourvil.

A fifth replica is located in the center of the town Saint-Cyr-sur-Mer near Marseilles, France.

A replica of the Statue of Liberty  at 39 ft 4 in may be seen in Colmar, France, the city of Bartholdi’s birth, was dedicated on July 4, 2004 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of his death. It stands at the north entrance of the city. The Bartholdi Museum in Colmar contains numerous models of various sizes made by Bartholdi during the process of designing the statue.

From 1902 to 2002, visitors to Midtown Manhattan were occasionally disoriented by what seemed to be an impossibly nearby view of the statue. They were seeing a 30-foot high replica located at 43 West 64th Street atop the Liberty Warehouse. In February 2002 the statue was removed by the building’s owners to allow the building to be expanded. It was donated to the Brooklyn Museum of Art which installed it in its sculpture garden on October 2005.

Replica of the Statue of Liberty, Las Vegas

A bronze sculpture of the Statue of Liberty is on display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Duluth, Minnesota, has a small copy on the west side of the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center, in the center of a clearing surrounded by pine trees where it may be passed unnoticed. It was presented to the city by some of Bartholdi’s descendants residing in Duluth.

The Boy Scouts of America celebrated their fortieth anniversary in 1950 with the theme of “Strengthen the Arm of Liberty”. Between 1949 and 1952, approximately two hundred 8 foot four inch replicas of the statue, made of stamped copper, were purchased by Boy Scout troops and donated in 39 states in the U.S. and several of its possessions and territories. The project was the brainchild of Kansas City businessman, J.P. Whitaker, who was then Scout Commissioner of the Kansas City Area Council. The copper statues were manufactured by Friedley-Voshardt Co. (Chicago, IL) and purchased through the Kansas City Boy Scout office by those wanting one. The statues are approximately 8 1/2 feet tall without the base, constructed of sheet copper, weigh 290 pounds, and originally cost $350 plus freight. The mass-produced statues are not great art nor meticulously accurate (a conservator notes that “her face isn’t as mature as the real Liberty. It’s rounder and more like a little girl’s”), but they are cherished, particularly since 9/11. Many have been lost or destroyed, but preservationists have been able to account for about a hundred of them, and BSA Troop 101 of Cheyenne, Wyoming has collected photographs of over 100 of them.

There is a half-size replica at the New York-New York Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. Another smaller replica stands in Las Vegas, on West Sahara Avenue. The pedestal once housed a local business, Statue of Liberty Pizza. Today it advertises Liberty Tax Service, a tax preparation firm.

The city of Sioux Falls, South Dakota erected a replacement bronze reproduction standing 9 ft (2.7 m) tall in McKennan Park atop the original pedestal for a long-missing wooden replica.

“Liberty Enlightening the World” replica in Birmingham, Alabama.

A 36-foot (11 m) tall bronze replica, accurately based on Bartholdi;s “Liberty Enlightening the World”, stands in Vestavia Hills, a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama. It was cast in 1956 at the Société Antoine Durenne foundry in Somerville Haut Marne, France for placement in 1958 atop the Liberty National Life Insurance Company Building in downtown Birmingham. It was relocated and placed on a 60-foot (18 m) tall granite pedestal adjacent to Interstate 459 in 1989.

Two 30-foot copper replicas stand atop the Liberty National Bank Building in Buffalo, New York, nearly 354 ft above street level.

A 25 ft. tall replica sits on the ruins of the late Marysville Bridge (erected on a platform (pier)) in the Dauphin Narrows of Susquehanna River north of Harrisburg. The replica was built by a local activist Gene Stilp on July 2, 1986; it was made of venetian blinds and stood 18 feet tall. Six years later, after it was destroyed in a windstorm, it was rebuilt by Stilp and other local citizens, of wood, metal, glass and fiberglass, to a height of 25 feet.

A Lego replica of the Statue of Liberty consisting of 2882 bricks and standing 3 ft. tall is a popular sculpture among Lego enthusiasts. The statue went out of production, but due to popular demand was returned to sale. A much larger replica built entirely in Lego can be seen in Legoland Billund. A smaller version of the Billund model is on display at the Legoland California amusement park.

A 25-foot replica of the Statue, lofting a Christian cross, holding the Ten Commandments, and named the “Statue of Liberation through Christ”, was erected by a predominantly African-American church in Memphis, Tennessee on July 4, 2006.

A small replica stands on the grounds of the Cherokee Capitol Building in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, a gift from the local Boy Scouts in 1950. There is a 6-foot tall replica in Lebanon, Tennessee, near the southwest corner of the intersection of East Main Street and South College Street.

Fargo, North Dakota also has a replica of the statue of liberty on the corner of Main Ave. & 2^nd Street at the entrance of the Main Avenue Bridge.

The Kansas State Capitol in Topeka, Kansas has a replica of the Statue of Liberty.

There is a replica on the shoreline of Lake Chaubunagungamaug in Webster, Massachusetts.

In order to promote the 2008 Major League Baseball All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium, the city of New York has 42 different 8’6″ Statue of Liberty replicas, each in different locations in the city (34 outdoors, 8 indoors). Each is uniquely designed with different team colors and logos, along with several ones with the All-Star Game logo or different New York landmarks. This is similar to what was done with the cows in Chicago, the crabs in Baltimore, the angels in Los Angeles, and the Mr. Potato Head’s in the state of Rhode Island. 9″ replicas can be bought of the larger replicas.

There is one also on Alki Beach, in Seattle, Washington.

There is one in front of the old Sioux City, Iowa auditorium.

A replica stands in a roadway park on Orange Avenue in Orlando, Florida.

Statue of Liberty Park near Shimoda, Aomori Japan.

Statue of Liberty replica at Odaiba, overlooking the Rainbow Bridge in Tokyo Bay

The French Statue of Liberty came to Odaiba, the beach area of Tokyo since April 1998 until May 1999 in commemoration of “The French year in Japan”. Because of its popularity, in 2000, a replica of the French Statue of Liberty was erected at the same place. Also in Japan, a small Statue of Liberty is in the Amerika-mura (American Village) shopping district in Osaka, Japan. Another replica is located near the town of Shimoda south of Misawa, Japan where the United States has a U.S. Air Force base with 8,000 military members. This replica is located on the same latitude as the original statue in New York.

Replica of the Statue displayed at Karmøy, Norway.

Statue of Liberty replica in the village of Arraba, Israel.

From 1887 to 1945, Hanoi was home to another copy of the statue. Measuring 9 ft 4 inches tall, it was erected by the French colonial government after being sent from France for an exhibition. It was known to locals unaware of its history as Turợng Bà đầm xòe (Statue of the Open-Dress Dame). When the French lost control of French Indochina during World War II, the statue was toppled on August 1, 1945 after being deemed a vestige of the colonial government along with other statues erected by the French.

During the Tiananmen Square protest of 1989, Chinese student demonstrators in Beijing built a 33 foot image called the Goddess of Democracy, which sculptor Tsao Tsing-yuan said was intentionally dissimilar to the Statue of Liberty to avoid being “too openly pro-American.” In 1897 a 4 foot replica in iron and bronze was erected in Cenicero, Spain, to honor local fighters during the First Carlist War.

In 1936 it was removed during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco. It was restored in 1976 and moved indoor in 1997 because of deterioration, and a new bronze statue replaced it in the original plaza.

In Buenos Aires, Argentina there is a small replica in Barrancas De Belgrano Square, acquired by Argentina to France.

In Lima, Peru the New York casino in the Jesus Maria District has a small replica in the main entrance. The whole casino is a tribute to the state of New York and the USA.

A smaller replica is in the Norwegian village of  Visnes, where the copper used in the original statue was mined.

A replica stands atop the Hotel Victory in Priština, Kosovo.

A replica stands in front of New York City Center, a shoopping in Barra de Tijuca, State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazilian Federation.

In Minimundus, a miniature park located at the Wörthersee in Carinthia, Austria is another replica of the Statue of Liberty.

There is also a small replica located at RAF Lakenheath, England, at the base flag plaza, made from leftover copper from original.

At a highway intersection in Jerusalem called ‘New York Square,’ there is an abstract skeletal replica of the Statue.

A 115 ft copy is in the German Heidepark Soltau theme park, located on a lake with cruising Mississippi steamboats. It weighs 28 tonnes (31 short tons), is made of plastic foam on a steel frame with polyester cladding, and was designed by the Dutch artist Gerla Spee.

Camp John Hay, a former US base in the Baguio City (Philippines), also has a small replica of the statue near the amphitheater.

A 30-foot replica can also be seen at the Westfield Marion shopping complex in Adelaide, South Australia.

A 17-foot, 3.4 ton replica stood atop the Liberty Shoe factory in Leicester, England until 2003 when the building was demolished, the statue was put into storage while the building was replaced. The statue, which dates back to the 1920s, was initially going to be put back on the replacement building, but was too heavy, so in December 2008 following restoration it been placed upon a pedestal near Liberty Park Halls of Residence on a traffic island close to where it originally stood.

A 15 feet high replica of the statue of liberty is seen in the western entrance to the village of Arraba in Israel, near a local restaurant.

A 10 feet high replica is situated on the stairwell of a bowling alley building in Warrington, England. It used to be above the entrance of a restaurant nearby.

There are at least two Statue of Liberty replicas (greater than 30 feet) in Taiwan. These two statues are in the cities of Keelung and Taipei.

A replica of the torch was created for the 1968 film, Planet of the Apes, for the last scene, and the torch was later sent to be in the last episode of Lost in Space, titled “Junkyard of Space.”

Truly, this original gift from France to the United States, has kissed the world.

There is a sitting Liberty, many small miniatures and various replicas throughout the world. Perhaps there is no other statue that has been so duplicated, anywhere and at anytime? Liberty is not just an symbol of the United states, it is the cry of every heart for,

“Liberty Enlightening the World!”

Next time: ‘The Cost of Liberty’

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