The Lake Mendota Statue of Liberty will make its return to University of Wisconsin’s Hoofers Winter Carnival this month after a 13-year hiatus from campus.
“The statue has always been very iconic for the university and for the ingenuity of its students,” said Hoofers Event Chair Bridget Maniaci. “Hoofers wanted to get it back on the ice because it is a really creative, fun thing that a lot of alumni hold very dear to their heart.”
The statue is a scale replica of the top fifth of the original Statue of Liberty and will appear to rise out of a frozen Lake Mendota outside Memorial Union.
Although the statue has undergone major repairs, including a total rebuilding of the torch in 2004, the majority of the original Styrofoam structure constructed by UW alum Chris Murphy is still used today.
Murphy said during the statue’s time on campus it made regular appearances during the Winter Carnival, Hoofers annual event to celebrate the season, and was a very popular attraction.
“People treated it with reverence and respect, which really surprised me. It’s a very, very powerful symbol,” Murphy said. “I don’t think anyone in their wildest dreams thought that it would still be around. I’m glad to be able to say I was there.”
Maniaci said the statue dates back to 1979, when the Pail and Shovel Party controlled the UW student government. The party is most famously known for using student fees to pay for projects such as covering Bascom Hill in pink flamingoes.
Murphy said the statue originally cost about $5,000 of the student government’s money, upsetting some students who were concerned the money could be spent better elsewhere.
The statue will undergo structural and aesthetic repairs for this year’s carnival, which will equate to about $750, Maniaci said. The funds will come from Hoofers and Wisconsin Union Directorate.
She added that bringing the statue back would not have been economically feasible if the county had not repaired the torch in 2004, when the statue appeared on Willow Island by the Alliant Energy Center.
“I wasn’t happy with [Winter Carnival being small], and I wanted to see it become a really big event again. It has been a part of winter campus for decades, and it has ebbed and flowed, so we decided to do it big this year,” Maniaci said.
Looking forward, Maniaci hopes the Statue of Liberty will continue to be an integral part of the Winter Carnival. She added Hoofers will now focus on repairing the statue and finding a long-term storage solution for it.
“Hoofers is a great home for the statue because it has always been tied to the students and the lake right in front of the Union. We’d like to see it up in many years to come, so we would like to make sure that it survives,” Maniaci said.
Winter Carnival will begin Feb. 12, at which time the statue will be visible outside of Memorial Union.
