05/31/2026
The story of the Brooklyn Bridge and Emily Warren Roebling “The Engineer’s Wife” received so much attention… so let me tell you another unbelievable New York story. 🗽
Most people believe the Statue of Liberty was created for New York.
But according to one of history’s most fascinating stories… she was never actually meant to be here at all.
In the 1860s, French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi designed a massive statue for the entrance of the Suez Canal in Egypt, which at the time was part of the Ottoman Empire. The project was called “Egypt Carrying the Light to Asia.” A giant woman holding a torch would stand at the gateway between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, welcoming ships entering the canal.
Construction of the canal began in 1859, and by the time it opened in 1869, Bartholdi had already completed most of the design. But suddenly… nobody contacted him.
While a confused Bartholdi was wondering why nobody had come for the statue, the news finally arrived: the Ottoman authorities had abandoned the project. Rising costs, political tensions, and concerns that such a massive female statue could offend parts of the Muslim population reportedly led the Ottomans to cancel the idea. And so, the statue remained with Bartholdi. In his workshop stood a half-finished masterpiece… with nowhere to go.
Years later, France decided to present America with a monumental gift to celebrate the 100th anniversary of American independence… and they turned to Bartholdi to create the statue.
Instead of creating an entirely new monument, Bartholdi returned to that forgotten torch-bearing woman he had never had the chance to build.
He redesigned the statue reportedly using the face of his mother, Charlotte Bartholdi, as inspiration and in 1886, the monument was shipped to New York in hundreds of separate pieces.
Today, that abandoned project has become one of the most recognizable symbols on Earth:
The Statue of Liberty. 🗽
