People baffled after realizing the Statue of Liberty isn’t really green

The Statue of Liberty has guarded New York for almost 140 years, but people are only just realizing she was a diversely different color at her unveiling ceremony.

Arguably New York City’s, and maybe even one of the world’s, most iconic landmarks is the Statue of Liberty - a neoclassical sculpture depicting the Roman goddess of liberty.

The 151.1-foot effigy was gifted to the Big Apple from the people of France and was unveiled by former New York governor, President Grover Cleveland, on October 28, 1886.

Set on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, the colossal sculpture is globally known for its bold, blue-green coloring and remains a bustling tourist hub to this day.

However, not many US citizens realize the symbol of freedom and inspiration was initially copper-colored and acquired its unique blue-green tinge due to chemistry.

Twenty years after the Statue of Liberty was unveiled, the copper icon had become green as a result of the oxidization covering it with a green patina.

According to IFL Science, the material first reacted with the oxygen in the air, forcing the metal to give up electrons.

This process eventually led to mineral cuprite, which turned the Statue of Liberty a pinkish red before black tenorite was formed.

Water in the atmosphere then mixed with copper oxides and chlorine from the harbor spray, thus causing the landmark to become the bold green-blue we know today.

While the Statue of Liberty has been restored on three separate occasions, her natural copper coloring has never been re-established - a fact some Americans want to change.

Blogger Scott Alexander previously claimed that if he ever became US president, he would bring back the copper and restore the statue every year.

"The Statue of Liberty is made of copper, and was originally a shiny orange-gold color. Over the years, it has tarnished to its current faded-green," he wrote on his platform, Astral Codex Ten.

"This is a little too on the nose as a metaphor for American society. As part of a general agenda of restoring liberty nationwide, I would order the Statue of Liberty cleaned until it is back to its original shining-gold state, and restored yearly thereafter."

This is unironically an awesome idea. https://t.co/1We0E6yMMT pic.twitter.com/PYsKJC4Xqw

— Samuel Hammond 🌐🏛 (@hamandcheese) September 5, 2023

Elsewhere, one X user user wrote: “The Statue of Liberty is made of copper, but due to oxidation, it turns into green.”

“At this point, the green IS her color,” typed a Facebook user after finding out the statue’s true design. “Take the money they’d use for that project and put it into something that actually matters.”

“I always wonder what it looked like when it was part way through the oxidation process,” commented a third. “I bet there was a period of time it looked awful and possibly terrifying before it turned completely green.”

While someone else penned: "I thought the current green color was its original color lmao."