The new Statue of Liberty Museum

The Ellis Island Museum is getting a makeover.

The new Statue of Liberty Museum (Statue of Liberty Museum) opens on May 16. Located on Liberty Island, it offers 4.5 million annual visitors to the island the opportunity to discover or rediscover the famous statue and its history in an interactive way. Access, open to all, is included in the purchase of a ferry ticket to Liberty and Ellis Islands.

The museum, which celebrates the history, influence, and legacy of the Statue of Liberty around the world, is built around three rooms. The first is an immersive theater where visitors are immersed in a ten-minute audiovisual experience about the creation of the statue, the ideal it represents, and the limits of freedom in today's world.

The second room offers an immersion in the workshop of Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, the Frenchman who built the statue, and allows you to witness all the stages of creation: from the small plaster model to the copper plates assembled on huge molds to create the final shape of the statue.

In the final room, visitors are invited to share their own perception of freedom through a multimedia workshop that allows them to create their self-portrait and add it to the others in a participatory mosaic nicknamed “Becoming Liberty”.

Finally, the visit ends with a powerful historical symbol: the statue's original flame, dismantled and replaced in 1986, after having been erected for a hundred years. As a bonus, it is possible to access the museum's roof, which offers visitors a 360-degree panoramic view of the Statue of Liberty, the Manhattan skyline and the entire New York Harbor.