By Jon Bowen

The Statue of Liberty has been welcoming immigrants to the land of the free since way back in 1886. That’s a long time to uphold the torch of democracy, and a few years ago, as she was closing in on her 100th birthday, Lady Liberty was beginning to show signs of all those years of wear and tear.

There were rust stains on the statue’s exterior copper skin, the iron armature was corroding, and the crown spikes were wasting away. The torch was in bad shape, and there were structural problems inside the statue, too. It took about $90 million in renovation funds, a dream team of highly skilled craftsmen, and some innovative sawing solutions to whip America’s most symbolic structure back into shape.

First, an international team of engineers and architects performed a series of inspections. They presented a condition analysis to the National Park Service, and right away NPS officials realized they would need a lot of help patching up the statue.

“We realized we had a huge job on our hands,” says NPS public affairs specialist Edie Shean-Howard. “We did a general management plan for restoration. It outlined the scope of the work to be done.”

The scope was so broad, President Ronald Reagan decided to pitch in. He appointed Lee Iaccoca to head up a private sector effort to restore the statue. Fundraising began for the restoration under a public/private partnership between the National Park Service and the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, Inc.

Once the work began, it brought together manufacturers and workers from all over the world. For two years, French and American craftsmen worked inside and around the statue, scampering along the massive aluminum scaffolding erected around the 151-foot statue. They repaired popped rivets, replaced corroded iron ribs with stainless steel.

The statue needed a new staircase, too, to carry visitors from the pedestal up to Lady Liberty’s crown. And of course the staircase needed rails and infrastructure pieces. That’s where the Carl C. Lewis Company came in. C.C. Lewis, a Massachusetts steel processing firm, produced the stainless steel side rails and support members to support the staircase.

At the time, C.C. Lewis was pioneering a new method of cutting bar from steel plate, rather than mill forming the bar. Robert Cournoyer, C.C. Lewis president and CEO, says there were two reasons why plate sawing was the best solution for the statue project cosmetic appeal and tolerance.

“Saw cutting provides you with much higher holding tolerance,” says Cournoyer. “It’s a much better application. What’s unique about saw cutting is that there’s no distortion because there’s very little heat. Tolerances can be held much closer together.”

The disadvantages of mill forming bar were already evident to the leaders of C.C. Lewis, and they saw a window of opportunity in those inadequacies. “It was too cumbersome, too expensive,” says Cournoyer. “We decided to look into an alternative way to cut these bars, and we created a whole new way of approaching the bar industry. We bought a machine to cut as many bars as the customer wanted.”

Cournoyer’s last comment points to one of the prime advantages of saw cutting. Companies that purchase plate and saw it as an alternative to hot-rolled bar can cut varying widths and lengths from a plate to satisfy customers’ specific needs. Saw cutting also provides a financial break for the companies because they don’t have to order bar mill minimum quantities, saving on inventory costs.

As Cournoyer points out, “The saw doesn’t care what it’s cutting. We bought one machine [for saw cutting], we bought two, we bought three. And as we did, we realized that this was the wave of the future.”

Eastern Stainless Steel, the company contracted to supply the steel for the statue restoration project, selected C.C. Lewis to cut the materials because the two companies had worked together in previous relationships. But C.C. Lewis got the job because it was uniquely equipped to do the work.

“There wasn’t anybody else in the country that could cut 20-foot plate,” says Cournoyer. “Eastern would send us plate that was 90 inches by 240 inches. We would be instructed to cut so many bars of so many sizes.”

The variety of band saw blades produced by American Saw gave C.C. Lewis extra flexibility in their cutting capabilities. Cournoyer says, “American Saw has different bands for different applications — tougher bands for different kinds of jobs.”

According to Cournoyer, C.C. Lewis went through about 150 tons of stainless steel for the Statue of Liberty project. After C.C. Lewis cut the steel, it was shipped to a New York fabricator. The fabricator drilled holes in the material and bolted it together to support the staircase that winds through the towering statue.

The saw cutting method that C.C. Lewis used in the statue project has evolved into a long-term approach for the company. “We’ve made a business out of this,” says Cournoyer. “We have 24 saws in four plant locations. Sawing makes up 50 percent of our revenue. We were smart enough to find a solution and capitalize on it.”

Regardless of the financial benefits, nothing compares to the sense of pride that Cournoyer and the other C.C. Lewis employees felt when the newly renovated statue was unveiled at the Statue of Liberty Centennial Celebration.

“We were extremely proud to be associated with this project,” Cournoyer says. “It was very gratifying, and we learned a lot from it. It gave us a springboard to go further.”

The restoration project became a springboard for the National Park Service as well. By partnering with the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation — and by collaborating with companies like C.C. Lewis and Eastern Stainless Steel — the NPS discovered a new way of doing business.

“It created a new paradigm,” says Shean-Howard. The National Park Service had never engaged in public-private partnerships before; they had always relied upon Congressional appropriations to fund projects. “Now the statue restoration project has become a model of public-private partnership,” says Shean-Howard. “Today, when we talk about doing a new project, — restoring a park, say — we no longer talk about doing it ourselves.”

When it comes to measuring the success of the statue renovation, Shean-Howard doesn’t hold back. “It was more than a success,” she says. “The project exceeded all standards in every way.”

And now, when the sun rises on New York Harbor every morning, Lady Liberty looks fresh and fit — ready for another hundred years of welcome-wagon duty. The renewed integrity of the structure is a tribute to the integrity of the craftsmen who manufactured and shaped the products used in the restoration. As Shean-Howard says, “The dedication of all those people who worked on it is a testament to the American spirit.”

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