自由女神穿新衣 - The "Statue of Liberty" refurbished and cleaned and repainted with new crown in Chiayi City, Taiwan -- January 10, 2011

自由女神穿新衣  - Dan Bloom's Roving Adventures in South Taiwan (2011) - published in Liberty Times newspaper, reported by Irma Yu, January 8, 2011, in Chinese-language edition only

BEFORE AND AFTER PHOTOS: The before photo from this website
http://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/static.panoramio.com/photos/original/31373180.jpg
shows the statue in 2010 with three broken points in her crown and a dirty, weatherbeaten exterior
coat.

THE NEW AFTER PHOTO by Irma Yu of the Liberty Times shows the Statue of Liberty after
the local DPP office called the Lion's Club on behalf of one petitioning expat who spent 5 years
trying to get the city to pay attention to the typhoon-struck and weatherbeaten "Freedom Godddess" first
erected by the Chiayi City Lions Club in 1985 or so. Now in 2011, she is all cleaned with a new paint of white and a new crown. BRAVO and thank you DPP and Lions Club!

EARLIER OLDER PHOTO
http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/p/m/c1b32/

Chiayi's Lady Liberty, strides high atop a traffic circle on the entrance into town from Highway 1. It is like a shining beacon for those who value freedom everywhere:... "Give me your tired, your poor, your hungry, your huddled masses ...." -- I am told that there is a replica somewhere in New York....

WIKIPEDIA SAYS: 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. Here are two photos for reference. There are other smaller replicas on rooftops of love hotels and motels across Taiwan, with over 50 spotted so far. In addition, there is a smaller replica in Chiayi City, now repainted in fine white paint with a new crown on seven rays
on her head after being weatherbeaten for over ten years due to autumn and summer typhoons which broke
three of the rays off and her turned her once-white coat into a drab grey. [Now all fixed. See above.]

Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi (1834 - 1904) is the name of the French man who designed the original, which was called in French ''Liberty Enlightening the World''.

Soon after the establishment of the French Third Republic, the project of building some suitable memorial to show the fraternal feeling existing between the republics of the United States and France was suggested, and in 1874 the Union Franco-Americaine (Franco-American Union) was established. Among its members was Bartholdi. The plan of Bartholdi having been approved, more than 1,000,000 francs were raised by subscription throughout France for the building of the statue. In 1879, Bartholdi was awarded design patent U.S. Patent D11,023 for the Statue of Liberty. This patent covered the sale of small copies of the statue. Proceeds from the sale of the statues helped raise money to build the full statue. On July 4, 1880, the statue was formally delivered to the American minister in Paris, the event being celebrated by a banquet.
Before starting his commission, Bartholdi had traveled to the United States and selected New York Harbor as the site for the statue. The United States set apart Bedlow's Island as a site for the monument, and funds were collected throughout the United States for the building of the pedestal, about US$300,000 being raised. In October 1886, the structure was presented to the nation as the joint gift of the French and American people.

This statue is 151 feet high, and the top of the torch reaches 306 feet above low-tide sea level. It was the largest work of its kind that had ever been completed up to that time. It was rumored all over France that the face of the Statue of Liberty was modeled after Bartholdi’s mother; and the body after his wife, Jean Emilie. TRUE?