I’m completely enamored with New York City. I (unfortunately) live in Texas, and from the few times I’ve visited the Big Apple, have grown completely in love with it. Everything about the city is far more interesting than anything you’ll find down here. New York has so much to do and so much to see and the city itself is so much less pretentious than say, Dallas. The people are a lot nicer and aren’t as full of themselves as they are down here. As matter of fact, on my first visit to New York several years ago, I was nervous about meeting people because all I ever heard was how rude they were. I usually heard this from Texans. Once I got there I found New Yorkers to be amongst the nicest and most helpful people I had ever met. I couldn’t understand the bad rap they had, but then I came up with a theory. It was the rude Texans who were claiming New Yorkers were the rude ones. Obviously the New Yorkers had to have been reacting to the rudeness of the Texas visitors, thereby creating this myth.

There were a great many other things that I fell in love with in New York. And that was its history. I did the touristy thing and visited many of the monuments, the most fascinating being the Statue of Liberty. My wife and I spent hours there, mostly waiting in line, but more so soaking up all the history in the museum section. When we were standing on the island, right under the statue, I was shocked to see that it looked a lot smaller than I expected. From all the pictures, and the myriad of scenes in movies, I always thought you could get a small crowd of people in the crown. In reality, you can barely fit two or three. Of course, this doesn’t make Lady Liberty any less impressive or her meaning to our country any less important.

When I want to learn more about any kind of history, I turn to the History Channel. The programming on the channel is exemplary, and there is no end to what you can learn by watching it. There was a series called “Modern Marvels” that used to focus on various subjects, one of which happened to be The Statue of Liberty. This episode is the subject of a recent DVD release from the History Channel, and it’s one I highly recommend watching. It is full of an amazing amount of information about the building of the statue, down to the last detail. It is a well-produced episode, than even gives a little insight into its semi-recent restoration. The only downfall to this particular documentary is its age. It was originally produced back in 1994, and as such, doesn’t mention anything about the events of 9/11. Granted, the statue was directly involved in those events, but the simple fact that since the attack, no one is allowed to visit the statute. This might have been worth mentioning somewhere on the disc for those who might be planning a trip to New York to see it.

The DVD release also includes a short feature on Ellis Island, which is touched on a bit in the main documentary. It in itself is well-produced, as it was originally a part of the History Channel series “Save Our History.” For you trivia nuts, there are also several pages of facts and figures about the Statue of Liberty.

In spite of there being about ten years of history missing, this is a great DVD for lovers of the past. The Statue of Liberty still stands for something, and documentaries like this will help to perpetuate that knowledge in our children. Learning about the past is one of the greatest and most interesting things a person can do; if for no other reason than the hope that eventually we’ll grow to the point that we’re not destined to repeat it.

Extras: History Channel’s “Save Our History” Episode – “Ellis Island”, Statue of Liberty Facts
Specifications: Full Screen
Studio: New Video / History Channel
Release Date: 2/24/2004
Region 1
MPAA Rating: NR
Website

We'll give The Statue of Liberty a B.