YMMV / Statue of Liberty

• Applicability: The Statue of Liberty was originally commissioned as a monument to the abolition of slavery and the Union victory in The American Civil War, but by the time it was finally finished, the postwar Reconstruction era had given way to a greater cynicism on race relations, the ascent of the "Lost Cause" historiography of the Civil War that deceptively framed the Confederacy as a Doomed Moral Victor, and a desire to move on from the "Late Unpleasantness". However, with its prime real estate overlooking the immigrant processing center on Ellis Island and the cosmopolitan metropolis of New York City, it instead became a symbol of America's Melting Pot of immigrants and of The American Dream, an association that was solidified in 1903 when Emma Lazarus' poem "The New Colossus", originally written in 1883 to raise money for the statue, was cast on a bronze plaque on its pedestal.
• Mandela Effect: Some people claim to have gone up to the torch in the statue. This is impossible, as the torch was damaged by a 1916 terrorist attack, and has been closed to tourists since then. The most likely explanation, is they really went up to the crown and mistook it for the inside of the torch, as such people usually describe climbing up a really long spiral staircase to get there, which is indeed how you get to the crown. The torch, however, is only accessible through a ladder in a very narrow passage in the arm.

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