[All photographs by John Hill, unless noted otherwise]

Twelve years I've lived in New York City and Wednesday morning was my first visit to Liberty Island, home to the most famous statue in the world. I didn't go to walk up the 350-plus steps to the crown of the Statue of Liberty though. I was there for a hard hat tour of the Statue of Liberty Museum. Designed by FXCollaborative, with exhibitions by ESI Design, the building is expected to open in May 2019.

[Rendering of Statue of Liberty Museum by FXCollaborative]

The current museum is housed in the base of the Statue of Liberty at the eastern end of the island. This location means that many people don't visit the museum, since thousands more people take a ferry to the island than get inside the statue's base. The new freestanding museum, located next to the existing Flagpole Plaza on the western end of the island, will enable more people to visit the museum and it should alleviate congestion on the island. Its galleries will have three main parts (Immersive Theater, Engagement Gallery, and Inspiration Gallery) to tell the story of the Statue of Liberty, but I'm guessing most people who head inside will do so to see the original torch (visible in the rendering above); it was replaced in the 1980s when the statue was restored for its centennial.
The one-story building ? elevated for post-Sandy FEMA requirements ? is basically an irregular trapezoid that is cut at an angle by exterior steps that span from the plaza to...