Statue of Liberty reopens amid shutdown

Lady Liberty was once again welcoming visitors to her shores after New York state agreed to shoulder the costs of running the famed statue during the federal government shutdown.

Eager sightseers stood in line in Manhattan's Battery Park, waiting for the ferry trips to the Statue of Liberty, which had been closed since Oct. 1.

Esther Athanase, a 26-year-old au pair from Le Havre, France, was using a ticket she'd booked months ago with a friend. "We have to do this," she said. "It's an American symbol. And it was a gift from France."

Ahmed Albin-Hamad, 24, a Saudi Arabian student at Drexel University in Pennsylvania, said he came to Battery Park to get a view of the statue.

"I assumed it was closed, but at least I could see it," he said. He was surprised and excited when he found out the statue had reopened.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Friday that the state would pay about $61,600 a day to reopen Liberty Island National Park through Oct. 17. If the shutdown is not resolved by then, officials said, they will renegotiate to keep it open.

On Sunday, Cuomo said it was in the state's economic interest to make sure the statue was accessible.

"When you close down the Statue of Liberty, you close down a good portion of the tourism that comes to New York City, and that is untold millions of dollars of damage," he said.

New York has 33 sites under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service, and they have been shut since Oct. 1 during the partial federal government shutdown. The sites include the statue and the nearby Ellis Island Immigration Museum, which has remained closed for repairs since Superstorm Sandy hit a year ago.

Nearly 4 million people visited Lady Liberty in 2011, generating $174 million in economic activity, the park service said.

Governors in several other states have asked for authority to reopen parks within their borders, citing economic losses from closures. Arizona reopened the Grand Canyon on Saturday. Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota and Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado are also reopening along with several parks in Utah, according to the parks service website.

- AP