The Statue of Liberty holds paradoxes. Forget the myth that it was a gift from the French government. Its sculptor, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, crowd-funded the statue by selling early drawings of it. And the publisher Joseph Pulitzer raised money to foot the bill for its pedestal, built on Liberty Island, off the southern tip of Manhattan. Did you know the landmark was originally envisioned as a colossal torch-bearing Egyptian woman—a lighthouse that would stand at the north entrance to the Suez Canal?
