Guest columnist
Carrying the torch for Seattle's Lady Liberty

By Matt Rosenberg
Special to The Times

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Collectively, we're still figuring out what kind of Seattle we want. While we're at it, let's remember that symbols matter, especially our 52-year-old Statue of Liberty replica on West Seattle's Alki Beach. The shabby treatment it has received over the years doesn't say much for our fair town.

Numskulls draped it with garbage. Volunteers cleaned that up. In 1996, vandals broke off its torch arm. Someone later phoned owners of an Alki eatery and disclosed that the limb was in a box in a nearby alley. Park workers reattached it. Last year, someone excised the torch. It was found floating in Puget Sound, then restored.

Seattle's Lady Liberty has also been an important community gathering spot, which amplifies the gravity of the abuse it has suffered. Within hours of the Sept. 11, 2001, carnage perpetrated against America by Islamic extremists, the statue was enveloped by candles, pictures, poems and every imaginable sort of tribute to the victims. For many in Seattle, it was instinctively a place to seek company and solace after the horrific attacks.

Antiwar protesters held peace vigils there later. That's all to the good, whatever your opinions on Iraq, Afghanistan or George W. Bush.

Now the statue's fans face a test that — in a nice twist — could finally secure it and show where Seattle's heart really lies.

Learn more For more information on the fund-raising effort for the Statue of Liberty at Alki, call Northwest Programs for the Arts at (206) 632-4545, or visit its Web site at www.northwestarts.org

The thing is crumbling. The sculpture, donated by the Boy Scouts in 1952, was made of a thin layer of copper sheeting over plaster, and wasn't really meant to be outdoors, where sand and salt spray have taken their toll. That's according to Northwest Programs for the Arts Executive Director Adam Sheridan, who's aiding a fund-raising drive to replace the piece.

NPA is a local arts nonprofit that runs the popular Seattle Music Fest at Alki each summer, and other programs that connect artists and audiences. One is named "Save Public Art," for which the statue is the first project.

Sheridan's group is at a crucial turning point. It has molds for a new replica that will be fashioned of poured bronze, one-half to three-quarters of an inch thick. NPA solicited bids and has selected a foundry to do the work, but it needs at least $33,500 to complete the job, including a small set-aside for future maintenance.

The Seattle Parks and Recreation Department is installing an attractive sign nearby that will describe the replacement project and encourage donations. The department would also remove the old statue.

It would be nice if the city could pay for the whole effort. But $5.5 million has been sliced from the parks and recreation budget since 2002, and much maintenance has been deferred.

With strong documentation of neighborhood involvement and matching donor pledges or contributions, there's a chance statue supporters could win up to $15,000 from the city's "small and simple" matching-grant fund.

Sheridan welcomes the challenges ahead. "There is a magic to the community funding the project. It's a piece of patriotism and Americana, a place to focus our celebration and grieving. We walk by it and think about things, we imbue it with this power."

Everyone appreciates the gorgeous water and mountain views at Alki, the long sandy beach and paths. Not to mention visitors speaking in foreign languages, unbeatable people-watching and great restaurants and coffee houses.

But the ugly vandalism of the statue is more on par with those who park in front of nearby residential driveways, race loud motorcycles down the strip and side streets, and bellow drunkenly around Alki homes in the wee hours.

Other problems at Alki include dimwits on motorized scooters who recklessly drive on the path for bikers and in-line skaters, and even the walking path; plus louts littering the beach with broken glass, trash and residue from fires illegally set outside designated fire pits. Neighbors say police are trying, but stretched thin.

So we're left with a jammed party strip that can veer out of control on warm nights — a place where it's no stretch at all for some addled miscreant to hack off the Statue of Liberty's flimsy arm, or torch, just for fun. That's appalling.

As an important first step toward re-civilizing Seattle's beautiful front porch on Puget Sound, let's get the new and improved Statue of Liberty replica built at Alki. If private donors can pledge $7 million for safety and security upgrades at the real Statue of Liberty, certainly our community can raise a tiny fraction of that for our own modest monument to democracy and liberty.

Matt Rosenberg is a Seattle writer and regular contributor to The Times' editorial pages. E-mail him at oudist@nwlink.com. His Web log is at www.rosenblog.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company