A new Statue of Liberty museum

The Statue of Liberty finally has a museum worthy of the symbol’s stature, said Edward Rothstein in The Wall Street Journal. The new pavilion-like structure “defers to the statue rather than competes with it,” but beneath its grasscovered roof lies ample room for an exhibition that explores the statue as a symbol and as a work of colossal ambition. The original torch stands before a 22-foot wall of windows in the final room; nearby looms a copper replica of Liberty’s 8-foot-tall face, “at once stern, compassionate, and unsentimental.” The museum was needed, said Henry Grabar in Slate.com, because four out of five visitors who ferry to Liberty

Island can’t enter and climb the statue: Its capacity is too limited. The new museum easily outshines the smaller hall it replaces. “It’s a thoughtful, self-aware space,” able to acknowledge simultaneously the values the statue represents and how our country sometimes falls short of them.