Standing at the western end of the Ile aux Cygnes in Paris is the other Statue of Liberty. As she stands now, she look towards her namesake in new york.
She's made of bronze by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, who made the larger one also, but is only 9 meters tall compared with 46 meters for the new york version.
Where the one in new york was dedicated in 1886, this one in Paris was donated by the Parisian community in the US in 1884 and initially stood in the Place des Etats-Unis – a few blocks south of the Arc de Triomphe. While this might seem in reverse, work on the New York statue (the right arm, torch and head) started in 1875.
She was moved to the Pont de Grenelle and turned to face the center of Paris for the Universal Exposition of 1889. For the Universal Exposition of 1937 she was turned to face New York and she was moved to her current location, gazing towards New York and greeting visitors to Paris sailing/motoring up-river, in 1968.
But somewhere, the story above doesn't make sense. On the information placard there's an old black and white photo of the statue on the Pont de Grenelle. In the background is a bridge that looks very much line the Pont de Bir Hakeim (then the Pont de Passy). But it looks to have too many arches on the lower deck so it might be the original Pont de Passy, in place from 1887 to 1903 when it was replaced by the current bridge, but I've not been able to find out if the original was a double-descker bridge or not. If it is the original Pont de Passy, then the statue was facing west when originally placed on the Pont de Grenelle before being turned to face the Eiffel tower in 1889, or if it's the Pont de Bir Hakeim, built between 1903 and 1905, then it was turned to the west before 1937.
The bridge in the background cannot be the Pont Mirabeau which was built between 1895 and 1897 downstream of the Pont de Grenelle because this was a new bridge when built, not a replacement.
Either way, what's really interesting to me in this photo (scroll beneath the color photo of the statue) are the banks of the Seine. No concrete and stone walls holding the sides of the river but what looks like mud banks on either side!
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