Singing the National Anthem at the top of their lungs, an assemblage of Lady Liberty lovers escorted a replica of the statue across the Brooklyn Bridge to its new home at Vox Pop.
The statue was brought to the borough through the generosity of the owners of the West Village eatery One if By Land, Two if By Sea, who donated their statue to the Ditmas Park coffee house after hearing the story of how Vox Pop’s Lady Liberty was swiped off the street and then beheaded for the sick pleasure of YouTube viewers everywhere.
“It was an incredibly moving experience to bring it across the bridge,” said Vox Pop owner Debi Ryan, whose new statue was paraded from lower Manhattan to the liberal-minded bookstore/coffee house on Cortelyou Road near Coney Island Avenue. “There were so many people and more and more people kept joining in. It was a great community event.”
Vox Pop’s original Lady Liberty was swiped from its perch outside the store on June 20. On July 7 an Al-Queda-inspired video surfaced of a “terrorist” beheading and then bashing the head of the statue. The video was interspersed with the statements “Death to America” and “We don’t want your freedom.”
Cops investigating the theft have subpoenaed information from both YouTube and Yahoo. It’s their hope that the data would lead them to who made the video, as well as the ones who grabbed it off the street.
Vox Pop patrons celebrated all day Sunday when the weather-beaten statue was brought to the front of the store, right where the old one had greeted customers since 2003.
Yet Ryan said that the statue would disappear again, albeit briefly.
“It’s going off to be refurbished,” Ryan said. “She is going to get herself a little facelift.”
Ryan said that artisans at Sustainable Flatbush have also agreed to put a solar torch on the statue like the old one had.
“The statue had been standing on the roof of One If By Land for 35 years… It’s due for a little primping,” said Ryan adding that another celebration will be held upon the statue’s glorious return from a long-deserved statue spa treatment.
