On the night of July 30, 1916, a catastrophic explosion detonated in New York Harbor, equivalent to a 5. 5 magnitude earthquake and felt as far away as Maryland. German covert agents had targeted Black Tom island, a major naval munitions depot holding over two million pounds of dynamite, gunpowder, and artillery shells destined for Allied forces during World War I.
The blast was so violent that it shattered windows in Times Square, sent shrapnel flying into the Clock Tower of Jersey City, and rained burning debris directly onto nearby Liberty Island. Lady Liberty absorbed the brunt of the assault, peppered with thousands of sharp metal fragments that pitted her iconic copper skin. Far more insidious, however, was the violent atmospheric shockwave created by the blast.
The force warped Gustave Eiffel's internal iron skeletal framework, shearing and loosening vital structural rivets that anchored the right arm to the main body. While the statue's flexible engineering prevented a total collapse, the shear stress exerted on the arm's internal iron armature severely compromised the load-bearing safety of the raised arm and torch. Authorities quickly realized that allowing crowds of tourists to climb the narrow ladder inside the weakened arm was a recipe for disaster.
Repairs were made topatch the copper skin, but the internal rivet damage was so profound that the torch was closed to the public on the day of the blast and has remained strictly off-limits ever since.