Lady Liberty stands a total of 305 feet tall, but the statue itself accounts for less than half of that — at 154 feet, the pedestal is actually slightly taller than the statue (151 feet). By more than doubling Lady Liberty’s height, the pedestal allows her to be seen from farther away as people enter New York Harbor and all it represents.

Inside the pedestal’s lower level is a plaque inscribed with “The New Colossus,” a sonnet written by the poet Emma Lazarus that includes the famous lines: “Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Officially known as “Liberty Enlightening the World” and donated to the United States by France in 1884, the iconic landmark was created by French sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi.

The Statue of Liberty weighs in at 440,000 pounds, including 176,000 pounds of copper, and was itself copper-colored until it gradually turned green due to exposure to the elements over the course of several decades. The idea for the statue came from Édouard René de Laboulaye, a historian and abolitionist who wanted to commemorate the end of slavery. He first conceived of the monument in 1865, meaning it took more than 20 years for his idea to be funded, built, shipped, and reassembled in America; Laboulaye himself died in 1883, shortly before its completion.