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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Troodon, post: 215620, member: 4626&quot;]The torch was closed off to the public for safety reasons, not security.&nbsp; It is a very tight, narrow, spiral staircase that was not designed for the high volume traffic that visits the Statue of Liberty.&nbsp; During the rennovation they determined there wasn&#039;t a feasible way to make it reasonably sdafe for the expected traffic within the confines of the structure, so they decided to close it off.&nbsp; If you go up to the crown, you can still see the stairway leading up to the torch... it is pretty scary to contemplate climbing up that thing, definitely not for people with a fear of heights and/or cramped enclosed spaces... you can see why they decided to close it off.</p><p><br /></p><p>However, security concerns since 9/11 have closed off the crown too (just learned this todat, reading the Wikipedia article, was not the case last time I visited)... now the highest you can go is the top of the pedestal.&nbsp; There&#039;s no definite time frame for reopening the interior of the statue itself.</p><p><br /></p><p>Unfortunately you have to expect that, should come as no suprise that the Statue of Liberty is potentially a desirable target of terrorism, because of its high profile and symbolic nature.&nbsp; Unrestricted freedom is not freedom at all; it is anarchy!&nbsp; True freedom means having to sacrifice a reasonable amount of freedom for a reasonable amount of security (laws, for example, are a restriction of freedom, but few would want to live in a lawless society!)&nbsp; It&#039;s always a tradeoff.&nbsp; Each society decides for itself how much of a tradeoff it considers reasonable and is willing to make.&nbsp; There are differing opinions on where to set that line of course, but only absolutists and anarchists would argue that no trade-off should be made at all.</p><p><br /></p><p>Don&#039;t want to get into a political debate though.&nbsp; Hopefully the world security situation will improve to the point they let people up to the crown again someday.&nbsp; I was up there myself on a school field trip (I believe in about 1992) and it was a great experience.&nbsp; According to Wikipedia:</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>So there&#039;s hope still.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Anyway to get back to coins, would mention that these are the US coins that depict or have depicted the Statue of Liberty:</p><p><br /></p><p>1986 Statue of Liberty clad half dollar commemorative</p><p>1986 Statue of Liberty silver dollar commemorative</p><p>1986 Statue of Liberty gold five dollar commemorative</p><p>1997-present 1/10 oz, 1/4 oz, 1/2 oz, 1 oz American Platinum Eagles</p><p>2002 New York state quarter</p><p>2007-present Presidential dollar series of course...[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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