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Tourists in front of the Statue of Liberty in New York - Source: ONE News -
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Closed since the September 11 attacks, the crown of the Statue of Liberty, the US monument symbolizing freedom and democracy in New York harbor, could reopen to visitors by the July 4th holiday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said.
Recognized around the world, the statue was one of the first sights for immigrants arriving by ship for over a century but was closed to the public after the September 11 attacks because of safety concerns.
The museum gallery and observation deck at the landmark's base were reopened to the public in 2004, but access beyond that point is prohibited.
"We will endeavor to do everything we can," Salazar said in an interview of the likelihood of reopening the crown at the top by July 4. "We may have it opened up to a smaller group of people."
Salazar said the department is considering implementing a ticketing or lottery system to allow small groups of people to enter the crown at specific times of the day, similar to crowd control and safety procedures taken at the Washington Monument.
The National Park Service closed the crown because access to the top of the statue, which depicts a robed woman holding a torch, is limited to a narrow stairwell with a handrail on only one side. In the event of an emergency, there is no quick exit.
"If you put several hundred people in there and there is some kind of event, lots of people could be killed very quickly," Salazar said.
Salazar expects a report by April 15 assessing the safety concerns behind re-opening the crown along with options for how to proceed.
"Those are the kinds of things we're looking at with our aspiration being that we do have the Statue of Liberty opened up," he said.
While the number of visitors to Lady Liberty, which the United States received as a gift from France in 1886, have fallen in the years since the September 11 attacks, the park service is seeing numbers rise again. The agency said about 3.2 million people visited the statue in 2007, up from 2.5 million in 2006 but still below the 3.6 million that made the trip in 2000.
Allowing visitors to climb to the crown is likely just a first step in Salazar's self-proclaimed "ambitious" agenda for America's landscape.
He said major lands legislation pending in the Congress "is one of the most significant bills in the last 50 years with respect to our treasured landscapes."
The Omnibus Public Land Management Act, being voted on by the House of Representatives on Thursday, combines more than 160 measures introduced by the previous Congress. It includes measures for new wilderness designations, wild and scenic rivers, national parks, hiking trails and historic preservation initiatives.
Salazar said he expects President Obama to sign the measure into law.
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