New Jersey’s French connection continues to strengthen. Just weeks after the announcement that Paris’s Centre Pompidou will open a branch in Jersey City’s Journal Square, a nine foot tall bronze replica of the Statue of Liberty, produced from the 1878 plaster original by Auguste Bartholdi, has departed Le Havre in France en route to the Garden State.
Said the shipper, CMA CGM Group, “this symbolic journey represents the friendship between the U.S. and France.”
The 1,000 pound statue will arrive in Elizabeth on Wednesday aboard the 985-foot CMA CGM NERVAL. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, French Ambassador Philippe Etienne and Port Authority of New York & New Jersey Chairman Kevin O’Toole will be in attendance to see the statue offloaded.
The statue will then be installed on Ellis Island, opposite her big sister, where she will be on public display for Independence Day on July 4. She will then be taken overland by CEVA Logistics to her final destination, the Residence of the French Ambassador to Washington, D.C., where she will be unveiled and put on public display on July 14th for Bastille Day.
According to CMA, the statue was housed in a specially designed plexiglass case and placed in a specially decorated 20-foot container. Art transportation specialists worked alongside the shipper.