Is France sending a second Statue of Liberty to the U.S.?
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  The Statue of Liberty will soon be joined in New York Harbor by her little sister,' a smaller replica statue expected to be delivered by container ship from France, according to a recent report. The new bronze statue, nicknamed the little sister, is one-sixteenth the size of the world-famous one that stands on Liberty Island. On Monday, it was lifted and loaded into a special container at the National Museum of Arts and Crafts (CNAM) in central Paris, where it has been installed since 2011 in the museums garden, CNN reported. It will be erected on Ellis Island, just across the water from the original, from July 1 to July 5, according to the media outlet. The statue, created in 2009, weighs more than 992 pounds and is just shy of 10 feet tall. It is an exact replica of the original, according to CNN. The statue will be loaded onto a ship at the port city of Le Havre on June 19 and reach New York on July 1. Its final destination will be Washington, D.C., where it will be on display for 10 years at the French ambassadors residence, according to the news agency. The statue symbolizes freedom and the light around all the world, Olivier Faron, general administrator of the CNAM, told CNN. We want to send a very simple message: Our friendship with the United States is very important, particularly at this moment. We have to conserve and defend our friendship.  The replica bears the same neoclassic design as our original, which represents the Roman goddess Libertas and measures 151 feet tall atop the giant pedestal. Lady Liberty is instilled with symbolism, including her crown, which has seven spikes, representing sun rays extending out to the world. Her tablet is inscribed with Americas date of independence in Roman numerals, and broken chains and shackles lie at its left foot, a reference to the abolition of slavery in the United States. THE ORIGINAL LADY LIBERTY  The Statue of Liberty was conceived in 1865 by French historian douard de Laboulaye as a gift to the newly-reunified United States following the Civil War. It took nearly 10 years to construct. Engineer Eugne-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc began the construction, but when he died in 1879, just four years into its creation, Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel, the French engineer who constructed the Eiffel Tower, finished the statue. The 225-ton statue traveled to New York in 1885 onboard a steamer ship and was inaugurated in New York the following year.