The Statue of Liberty lost her torch Thursday, but it’s been a long time coming.
Lady Liberty, a gift from the French that was put up in the harbor of New York City in 1886, had her original 3,600-pound gold torch taken down in 1984 and replaced with a new one while the other one was supposed to be cleaned after 100 years of wear and tear.
However, National Park Service and Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island officials found the original had been damaged too severely to repair and ruled it would be best not going back into the statue’s right hand.
Instead, the original torch was stored in the base of the statue for more than three decades until Thursday.
It’s a historic morning here on #LibertyIsland, the original torch of the #StatueofLiberty is once again on the move! The new museum will be open May 2019! ?@StatueEllisFdn pic.twitter.com/ATRAf7kLuJ
— Statue of Liberty NM (@StatueEllisNPS) November 15, 2018
Workers spent hours mid-Thursday moving the torch out from the statue, onto a truck, and a few hundred feet away to the site of a forthcoming museum dedicated to the Statue of Liberty.
The museum is scheduled to open in May and will give visitors historical context to the statue.
