Newly installed hydronic boilers, along with B&G circulator pumps and air separators, are working to keep visitors to the Statue of Liberty warm.

©iStockphoto.com/garymilner

The Statue of Liberty is still a popular destination site for visitors to New York City. However cold winter temperatures usually meant tourists would freezingly climb the 335 stairs to the top of the famous statue.

Designed by sculptor, Auguste Bartholdi and structural engineer, Gustave Eiffel, the 111-foot (heel to top of head) statue was completed in 1884, and was never designed to be heated. The base of the statue contains the museum, gift shop, information center, security area, fire system and the hydraulic elevator that carries visitors to the top of the pedestal.

Inadequately heating this space was an antiquated, 50-year-old oil-fired boiler. But now the landmark includes a system that is keeping everyone warm. It now is heated by a state-of-the-art system of eight hydronic boilers, each with a 2-inch Bell & Gossett circulator pump and a 2-inch Bell & Gossett Enhanced Air Separator.

According to Mario Fazzari of Wallace-Eannace, the Fluid Handling Representative Association member company in New York City, “The people at the Statue of Liberty like the new heating system because it's quiet and they have heat in parts of the Statue and buildings that was never heated before."