By Vladimir Brezina
A week ago, on October 28th, 2011, Lady Liberty celebrated her 125th birthday. There were celebratory events: a parade of ships, fireworks of course… These have come and gone. But remaining permanently—let’s hope!—are some amazing webcams installed by EarthCam on the Statue, looking both at it and out across New York Harbor.
First, here are some views of the firework display captured by another of EarthCam’s webcams, a streaming video camera over in Brooklyn that is trained on the Statue.
The webcams installed on the Statue itself include
TorchCam, providing a close-up wide-angle view of the torch (“experience a part of the Statue that has been closed off to the public since 1916”).
CrownCam, an interactive camera looking down from the torch onto the rest of the Statue.- HarborCam, a high- definition streaming video camera looking from the torch balcony out across the Harbor at the Lower Manhattan skyline.
There is also an ultra-widescreen 25-megapixel interactive panorama of the Hudson River, the Manhattan skyline, and the East River bridges:
HarborCam’s time-lapse video, showing all manner of boats zipping in all directions across the harbor, is also fun to watch!
With the high-definition view of the water texture (actually somewhat degraded in downloading these photos—check out the site itself!), as well as the boat traffic, these webcams should be a boon for New York City kayakers who want to know the current conditions before venturing out.
And the next storm, or colorful sunrise or sunset, over the city will certainly have me going to the view from the Statue of Liberty!
Vladimir Brezina (RIP) 
Johna Till Johnson
Wind Against Current 
What will really be cool is to see some kayakers in those shots.
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Yes!
It will take two: one kayaker to pose on the water, preferably quite close to the Statue, and one person with a computer to save the picture. Or the kayaker could do it all through a smartphone :-)
When is the next regularly scheduled kayak trip to the Statue?
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Those are some amazing views- i will definitely be using the webcams much!
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One sees some unexpected and beautiful things. For instance, this morning, even though here on the Upper East Side it’s a clear sunny day, Lower Manhattan appears from the Statue of Liberty to be shrouded in low clouds and fog, with cloud shadows flitting over water…
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Beautiful photos! You make me want to get out on the water.
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Thanks!
The last few days, I’ve been looking at HarborCam every morning, hoping for more beautiful surprises…
These photos, from 300 or so feet up, show the water very differently from the way we see it from 2 feet up when sitting in our kayaks. When HarborCam shows a pattern of waves moving calmly and majestically across the harbor, I can just imagine how bouncy it would be in a kayak. It always happens that way. You tell someone how rough it was out there and show them a photo, and they say doubtfully, “It doesn’t look that rough…”
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The colors from the buildings mirrored on the water are lovely.
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Yes, they are… :-)
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