Post-Sandy, Shuttered Statue of Liberty, Ellis Islands Still in Limbo

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Liberty Island’s walkways were heavily damaged by Hurricane Sandy. Photos courtesy of the National Park Service.

Many of the island's pavers need to be reinstalled or replaced.

The island’s buildings were also battered by Sandy.

Doors such as this one were blown in.

The high flood line on the wall of Liberty Island’s visitor center.

Ellis Island suffered substantial damage as well. Here, brochures and other items stored inside a building were displaced and shredded to pieces.

Grounds crew members cleaning up the mess.

Floods brought by Sandy ruined indoor exhibits.

The doors of the ferry building were demolished by the water surge.

The fuel tank servicing the island was also damaged.

The U.S. Park Police’s boat, which was lifted onto the island, crashed into a trailer.

A trailer on the island was destroyed by the hurricane.

Liberty and Ellis Islands, both hit hard by Hurricane Sandy, are still closed to the public. The jury’s out on when the islands will reopen and where the long lines of visitors will be screened once they do.

“What I have found is that there is a tremendous amount of work that still needs to be done,” U.S. Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar told reporters last week after touring both islands.

Aside from the necessary repair work that remains, Salazar said the National Park Service (NPS) has yet to determine where to screen the islands’ annual 3.9 million visitors. Since 2001, the screening center has been housed in a large tent in Battery Park. The tent, which Sandy all but destroyed, will be dismantled this month.

“The issue which we will grapple with here,” said Salazar, “is whether we will continue to have security screening occur here at Battery Park or whether we’re going to move with one of the other alternatives that we are currently examining.”

The NPS recently proposed moving the center to Ellis Island, but the NYPD, opposed to that plan, wants visitors screened before they arrive by ferry to either island. Community Board 1 passed a resolution last fall in support of an alternative location for the center, which, it believes, obstructs views of the Statue of Liberty and causes congestion in and around Battery Park.

Salazar said he will meet with representatives from the National Park Service, the U.S. Park Police, the NYPD and the Bloomberg administration before making a decision, which he expects to be announced at the middle of this month.

“We are going to do it as fast as we can,” he said, “‘because we know the major impact it has to the economy.”

David Luchsinger, superintendent of the Statue of Liberty National Monument, said that work to clean up the island and stabilize the buildings has been ongoing. "Now we're working on the interiors of the buildings," he said.

"We’re going to get this place back up and running," Luchsinger added, "and it’ll be better than ever."

Meanwhile, the federal sequestration bill, with its sweeping budget cuts, could force the NPS to scale back, from seven to five, the number of days that the islands are open. The sequestration could also affect the length of time it will take to complete repairs.

According to the NPS, the $59 million in Sandy relief funds already allocated toward the restoration of the islands would not be affected by the cuts.