万花筒 2009-05-12&05-13 自由女神重新开放参观（在线收听）

If you were watching the Today Show this morning, then you saw the most dramatic opening segment we can remember in quite a while. There they all are, our friends from the Today Show family in the Crown of Lady Liberty to announce some big news concerning that statue. Our report tonight from NBC’s Mike Taibbi.

Our gift from France was always one of those vertical man-made wonders, like the Washington Monument, the Eiffel Tower that entice kids to say, ‘can we clime to the top?’, and parents to say, ‘I guess, if you really want to.’ Well maybe some grownups still like the idea.

I would walk every single stair to see the top.

I think it’s awesome. It’s about time.

But the Today Show’s Matt Lauer got the scoop from Interior Secretary Ken Salazar this morning. The treks to the top suspended since 911 are on again. 

Today we are announcing that on the Fourth of July, we will open up the Crown of the Statue of Liberty here in New York and New Jersey to the entire people of America. 

If you ever do get up there as I did in 1984 when Lady Liberty got a face-lift for her centennial party, you will never forget it. 

Not everybody who wants to, who takes the boat out to Liberty Island, will get to visit the crown. There will be a lottery, a maximum of 30 people at a time. 

These Brooklyn six graders were so excited they didn’t notice my crown was all wrong.

How many would want to climb all the way up to the top?

The statue was so huge. It arrived from France in 350 individual pieces, in 214 crates, and took four months to assemble. And your climb to the crown will be 250 feet up, and 346 winding steps. Also be aware that the statue is designed to bend in a brisk wind several inches, meaning you can feel it moving.

I probably feel woozy, because it sways back and forth.

But the point is as of July Fourth, if you want, you can’t feel it moving even as it moves you.

Mike Taibbi, NBC News, New York.