Liberty's Improved Torch 



Three tones of tinted glass were substi- 

 tuted for six hundred square feet of bronze ' 



To cut out 

 pieces of 

 the bronze 

 plating in 

 this long 

 protruding 

 flame, one 

 man lay flat 

 on his back 

 upheld by 

 a fellow 

 workman. 

 It was a six 

 days' job 



ONE of the most impressive fea- 

 tures of the Statue of Liberty 

 as it illumines the night is the 

 flaming torch uplifted high above 

 New York harbor. Few who watch 

 the torch's symbolic flickering light 

 know the story of its recent im- 

 provement — know, indeed, how the 

 workmen, oftentimes lying flat on 

 their backs with no scaffolding or 

 underpinning to support them, clung 

 to the framing and drilled thousands 

 of holes for glass plates, which took 

 the place of the old bronze covering. 

 A false movement meant a fall of 

 more than twenty feet and a slip 

 and slide down the interior of Lib- 

 erty's arm. Besides there was 

 the constant swaying of the torch 

 and arm during high winds to be 

 reckoned with. 



But these dangers did not dam- 

 pen the ardor of the glazers and 

 they finished their work on time. 

 To-day Liberty's torch is not of 

 dull bronze but of shimmering 

 glass, as Bartholdi, in the 

 judgment of Gutzon Borg- 

 lum, the sculptor, wished 

 it to be. Situated three 

 hundred and fifty feet from 

 the upper terrace, the 

 torch is reached only by a 

 sixty-foot ladder which 

 starts from a small plat- 

 form at the shoulder and 

 runs up the arm to Liberty's hand. At 

 this point a six-foot vertical ladder leads 

 to a two-foot gallery running around the 

 base of the flame. 



The first work was the removing of the 

 crude steelwork and the substitution of 

 sheet bronze, as described in the Popular 

 Science Monthly for February. Follow- 

 ing this, yellow glasses of various tones 

 were selected and graduated from the 

 bottom up in deepening shades. On windy 

 days the torch twists and shakes. Hence 

 the ordinary method of glazing could not 

 be employed. A new method had to be 

 devised — and without delay. 



Pieces of the bronze plating were cut 

 out from the inside of the torch, and molds 

 were constructed from them upon which 

 the glass was bent. The greatest difficulty 

 was experienced in reaching the extreme 

 points of the torch. The one long pro- 

 truding flame, which is shown above, 

 had to be cut open by a man lying flat 

 on his back and held by another during 

 the work. It took two men six days 

 to cut this one section. 



Holes were punched in the ribs 

 around each opening and brass bolts 

 were threaded through them. Over 



K\/\/\/\/\.//-? 



The glass is embedded in 

 soft putty and kept rigidly 

 taut by spring tension 



Miss Liberty's torch is no 

 longer of dull, inert bronze 

 but of shimmering glass 



the bolt ends was placed a small clip spring. 

 The glass was given an edging of non- 

 hardening putty; another clip spring was 

 slipped over the bolt end, and the nut was 



