For the first time since it closed its doors due to the Covid-19 outbreak in March 2020, the public can once more access the Statue of Liberty’s crown.

While the Statue of Liberty’s various parts progressively reopened over the epidemic, the crown remained off limits for more than 2.5 years until Tuesday.

According to Jerry Willis, a spokesman for the Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island, the National Park Service, which oversees the New York City monument, planned to celebrate the 136th anniversary of the statue’s dedication in 1886 by holding a soft reopening without a lot of publicity in late October.

Willis claimed that the objective was to educate newly recruited workers with seasoned tour guides to accustom them to crown-specific safety and security measures, but that didn’t happen.

Willis said that the reaction to the announcement was overwhelmingly positive. He said that there had always been a desire from the general people for access to the crown, and that the park manager had hoped to reinstate access for a time but that several obstacles had prevented them.

Willis claimed that several circumstances, including dealing with a record-low employment pool and having local, state, and federal pandemic limitations released, continually pushed back their schedule and delayed the reopening rather than any single event.

“To properly manage royal operations, we had to hire more employees and train them.

The sole ferry service that the NPS has approved is Statue City Cruises, and reservations must be made in advance online or over the phone.