5. The Incident at Black Tom Island
Not all sections of the statue is accessible to the public; since 1916, the torch has been off limits. This stems from an incident where German soldiers set fire to munitions stored on Black Tom Island, which was right next to Liberty Island. The island served as a major munitions depot, and that night had a barge with 50 tons of TNT, plus railroad cars carrying over a thousand tons of ammunition.
Just after 2:00 a.m., an explosion that measured 5.5 on the Richter Scale went off. The shockwave shattered windows up to 25 miles away. Smaller explosions continued for hours sending bullets and shrapnel flying. The explosion obliterated the original Black Tom island, and the flying shrapnel damaged Lady Liberty’s arm and torch so badly that the platform was closed down. It’s still closed off to the public till date.
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